A decades-long dispute over whether the words “Orlando” and “international” perplex travelers when used for multiple airports has finally reached an end — and the Orlando Sanford International Airport will be allowed to keep its name and logo.
A federal judge last week approved a settlement between the authority that runs the behemoth Orlando International Airport — one of the nation’s busiest — and the smaller Sanford airport, with only three airlines. The deal acknowledges that even though the two facilities have similar names, the confusion among flyers is minimal.
“The parties have now been coexisting for nearly 30 years,” U.S. District Judge Paul Byron wrote in his July 22 order.
He directed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Virginia to register the name Orlando Sanford International Airport.
Traffic is lined up at the entrance to Orlando Sanford International Airport on Friday, July 31, 2026. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)
If travelers become befuddled over the names, then both airports “will take steps to address such confusion in their sole and exclusive discretion,” according to the settlement.
“Most travelers are now aware that there are two airports in the region with similar names,” said Angela Starke, a spokeswoman for the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, or GOAA, which oversees the larger airport, in a written statement.
She added the Orlando airport’s leaders have “determined the energy…could be better used on other priorities, such as the several improvement projects already underway.”
Orlando International Airport is now the seventh busiest airport in the country, handling nearly 58 million passengers in 2025. The Sanford airport served just 3.2 million passengers last year. But with Orlando as part of the Sanford airport’s brand, it still sends a signal to tourists and business travelers that it is a gateway to the broader region.
Yet since 1997, when the Sanford airport adopted its current moniker, GOAA has griped that the smaller air field — more than 30 miles to the north and about an hour’s drive depending on traffic — had hijacked its name.
At the time, the Sanford airport was growing and offering flights overseas, including to the Caribbean and Europe. Tour operators in other countries were booking cheaper flights to the smaller airport. The growth did not continue, though, and today only Arajet offers regular international flights to Orlando Sanford, heading to the Dominican Republic.
Still, GOAA lawyers said in court documents that its facility has received dozens of calls, emails and complaints from lost flyers who ended up at the wrong airport after the name change.
Jimmy Coe, for example, said in an email to the larger airport that during his visit to Orlando in 2022, his taxi driver erroneously drove him to the Orlando airport instead of the Sanford airport where his Allegiant flight was departing.
“Only option was to purchase new tickets home for the flight 2 days later. No transfer or refund,” according to his email in court records. “This isn’t right.”
According to court records, a flyer with the Twitter name The FAM posted in 2019: “OMG, I’m at the wrong airport! Apparently there [are] 2 Orlando International airports. I’m 45 minutes away and my flight leaves in 60 minutes…WTF do I do?”
Other travelers complained their flight landed at one airport but their rental car reservations were at the other airport.
The battle between Sanford and GOAA became especially heated after the Sanford airfield applied to trademark its name and logo, succeeded, and GOAA filed an appeal. In March 2023, a federal trademark appeal board sided with GOAA. So in August 2023, the Sanford Airport Authority sued.
GOAA is attempting “to monopolize the phrase Orlando International Airport,” the lawsuit said, and the dispute dragged on.
Finally, in a June 17 memo to GOAA’s board, attorney Jeff Aaron urged members to give up the fight.
Confused travelers using the wrong airport “had fallen dramatically — from more than 2,200 several years ago to three in calendar year 2026,” according to Aaron’s memo, without specifying the source of those numbers.“This resolution allows GOAA to avoid the expense of a trial.”
Sanford airport officials also said they were pleased with the outcome.
“I’m happy to finally see the Sanford Airport Authority obtain the rights to its name and secure those into the future,” said Brett Renton, a partner with Shutts & Bowen law firm and outside general counsel to the Sanford Airport Authority.
Sanford’s battle over the use of “Orlando” was not the only one in the region, however. For five years, GOAA had accused the Brevard County airport once called the Orlando Melbourne International Airport — nearly 60 miles from Orlando — as having stolen the Orlando brand.
An agreement in 2019, however, paved the way for the facility to flip the two cities in its name and it is now known as Melbourne Orlando International Airport.
Flyers can rest easy, however. There’s virtually no chance a pilot, air traffic controller, or baggage handler would confuse the airports as they use unique three-letter codes.
The Sanford airport is called SFB and Melbourne’s is MLB. Ironically, the city name Orlando isn’t indicated at all in its airport’s code. It goes by MCO, which comes from its origins as McCoy Air Force Base.