New Airport Name?

From The St. Augustine Record, April 25, 2010: "New name, hope for new airline"
Comments, anyone? Here are my thoughts: Although it may be true that a name change from St. Augustine/St. Johns County Airport is due, I don't think the name should be limited by the words "Northeast Florida" or "Regional". You don't see Gainesville Regional calling itself "North-Central Florida Regional Airport". You don't see Daytona Beach Airport limiting itself by using "Regional" in its name. Call it what it is-"Daytona Beach International Airport".
Paragraph four of the article states "In the minds of people who don't know anything about St. Augustine, the current name conjures up images of a small dusty county airport with crop dusters taking off and landing..." In the first place, when we travel and people ask us where we came from, the response to "St. Augustine" is always positive. Most comment "Oh, I love that place" or "That's one of our favorite weekend spots". I don't think I will begin answering their query with "I'm from the Northeast Florida Region". Where the crop duster reference came from I'll never know.
Let's face it. When Skybus flew out of St. Augustine, they made a marketing error. They described their flights to and from SGJ as "Jacksonville/Daytona Beach with service out of St. Augustine". We flew with them to and from Columbus, Ohio and Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire. Skybus was correct in marketing the Pease AFB destination as Boston, because few of us wanted to weekend in New Hampshire. Saint Augustine is a destination in itself, though, and should have been marketed as such.

Northeast Florida Regional Airport at Saint Augustine.
Catchy!

Unfortunately, Northeast Florida destinations have had difficulty marketing themselves, regardless. It's amazing how many people don't know where JACKSONVILLE is, let alone St. Augustine, and it would be even less, if it wasn't for the Super Bowl five years ago.

People know Gainesville, due to the amateur athletic programs in that area, and Daytona Beach for its former Spring Break notoriety. St. Augustine may be known locally as "The First City," but that marketing doesn't hold much outside of this area (we have to come to grips to that).

To market regional airline service to the nation, a more recognizable name is required. Again, there's already a Jacksonville International Airport, for people who can find that city on the map. Having the words "Northeast Florida" in the name gets people to say, "Hey, that's where I'm going," whether they're headed to Brunswick, Fernandina, Jacksonville, Daytona, Gainesville, Palatka, Lake City, Deland or anywhere in between.

I don't know if it was mentioned in the article, but St. Augustine has an advantage of being called a regional airport, since Jacksonville, Daytona and Gainesville are all within its market; whereas Jacksonville has little market to the north, which is shared by Savannah; Daytona has little market to the south, which is shared by Orlando; and Gainesville has little market to the west, which is shared by Tampa.

I am happy that the city name got included, but didn't know that St. Augustine had such an identity crisis. Everywhere we go, people know where the oldest city is. Even stewards and barmen on cruise ships who originated from other countries are familiar with the whereabouts. So, it must be the geography-ignorant Norte' Americanos who are at a loss.
I won't worry about them, though, as they all have a GPS and want to argue about where they are and where they are going. We have one or two a week on the road project who say, "But my TomTom (or Magellan, or Garmin) says this road is open and is the quickest way to get from Palm Valley to U.S. 1."
You can't fix stupid!