Naming airports after individuals is common – for example Paris’ Charles de Gaulle, or New York’s JFK or Liverpool’s John Lennon airports. But not in Sweden. No naming commercial airports after celebrities here. Who the hell do you think you are?
In Sweden, it is tradition to name commercial airports after the location they are in – so Stockholm is called ‘Arlanda’, Gothenburg is called ‘Landvetter’ and Malmö includes the village of ‘Sturup’.
There was loose talk about changing Stockholm Arlanda to Alfred Nobel, but the idea didn’t fly. So, I thought, who could the airports be named after? There are about 38 airports in Sweden – here is my name list for 20 of them:
- Stockholm – ABBA Airport
- Gothenburg – Ace of Base Airport
- Malmö – Zlatan Ibrahimovic Airport
- Linköping – Louise Hoffsten Airport
- Nyköping Skavsta – Tess Merkel Airport
- Östersund Åre – Henrik Lundqvist Airport
- Ängelholm – Jill Johnson Airport
- Borlänge – Mando Diao Airport
- Västerås – Tomas Tranströmer Airport
- Jönköping – Dag Hammarskjöld Airport
- Växjö – Vilhelm Moberg Airport
- Hemavan – Anja Pärson Airport
- Ronneby – Viktor Balck Airport
- Örebro – Prince Daniel Airport
- Karlstad – Selma Lagerlöf Airport
- Kristianstad – Axel Anderberg Airport
- Skellefteå – Stieg Larsson Airport
- Halmstad – Gyllene Tider Airport
- Visby – Josefin Nilsson Airport
- Umeå – Eva Dahlgren Airport
Watching the Swedes 
Love this one: “There was loose talk about changing Stockholm Arlanda to Alfred Nobel, but the idea didn’t fly.”
My favourites are Dag Hammarskjöld, Olof Palme, Ingmar Bergmann and of course Alfred Nobel.
All the best for 2020!