Orlando Airport Ready to Drop Fight Over Melbourne Airport Using ‘Orlando’ in Its Name
A name flip may end the rancorous campaign by the huge Orlando airport to stop the much smaller Melbourne airport from identifying as part of the Orlando market.
The authority running Orlando’s airport has agreed tentatively to replacing Orlando Melbourne International Airport with Melbourne Orlando International Airport.
For nearly five years, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority has pursued an accusation that the Melbourne airport in south Brevard County has stolen the Orlando brand to the detriment of Orlando’s airport. The two airports are more than 60 miles apart.
Orlando airport authority officials don’t appear to like the proposed name switch but, while citing the crushing economic distress from COVID, also don’t want to pursue a lawsuit any further in an effort to force the Melbourne airport to drop its use of Orlando.
“Litigation is an uncertain and costly exercise. A jury trial in this matter imposed risks on both sides,” said Phil Brown, chief executive officer of Orlando’s airport authority in a memo to authority members. “No matter the outcome or likelihood of success, a trial would have imposed immense costs at this unique economic time.”
The aviation authority will consider the proposed settlement Wednesday afternoon during a meeting that will seat two, new board members.
For months, the authority as one of the most powerful government entities in the region has had only four of seven board members, with the three vacant seats reserved for appointments by Florida’s governor.
Earlier this month, Gov. Ron DeSantis filled one of those vacant seats with the appointment of Orlando businessman Craig C. Mateer, the founder and former owner of Bags Inc. On Friday night, DeSantis announced another appointment: John L. Evans of Winter Park, who works as a senior consultant for investment adviser Blue Granite Capital and was a staffer for former U.S. Sen. Connie Mack.
There are other airports with the Orlando name: Orlando Executive Airport, which is used mostly by small, private planes and is operated by the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority; and Orlando Sanford International Airport, which is more than 30 miles from Orlando International Airport in east Sanford.
The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority is opposing the Sanford airport authority’s efforts to get a trademark registration for the Orlando Sanford International Airport name.
In a 2017 protest of Melbourne’s use of Orlando in its airport name, Greater Orlando Aviation Authority members, including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and then- Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, rode in a chartered bus with an Orlando police escort to confront Melbourne officials in Brevard County.
They protested to Melbourne aviation authority members, including the then-mayor and veteran politician, Kathy Meehan, that having Orlando in the Melbourne airport name was confusing and a disservice to travelers.
Melbourne officials responded that the claim was bogus and that if just 1 percent of Orlando airport passengers mistakenly wound up in Melbourne, then the Melbourne airport passenger count would nearly double.
“I don’t see us dropping the name,” Meehan said at the meeting’s end.
In the Orlando aviation authority lawsuit filed in 2019 in federal court, Melbourne officials documented the emergence in 1998 of the use of the Orlando name.
Melbourne’s aviation authority also countered that Orlando International Airport advertising claimed to serve Orlando-area companies of Northrop Grumman, Harris Corp., Embraer and Rockwell Collins – all of which are major tenants of the Melbourne airport.
In January, the Orlando and Melbourne aviation authorities agreed to the settlement, pending approval by their governor boards, according to court documents. Melbourne airport officials declined to comment on the dispute while still under litigation.
In his memo, Brown repeated that Melbourne’s use of Orlando is “confusingly similar, false and misleading.”
Still, Orlando’s authority will allow Melbourne to continue using Orlando when placed after Melbourne in the airport’s name with a long list of conditions.
Among those conditions, Melbourne’s authority will agree to not state or imply that their airport is in Orlando, that their airport is closer to Orlando than it actually is and that the Melbourne airport is the Orlando airport.
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