{"id":343083,"date":"2026-07-17T04:41:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T04:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/343083\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T04:41:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T04:41:19","slug":"passengers-say-they-wont-fly-to-donald-trump-airport-united-now-lets-them-switch-destinations-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/343083\/","title":{"rendered":"Passengers Say They Won\u2019t Fly To Donald Trump Airport\u2014United Now Lets Them Switch Destinations Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

United Airlines is telling its reservation agents that customers who no longer want to fly to Palm Beach because its airport has been renamed for President Trump can switch to Miami or Fort Lauderdale for free.\n<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no published travel waiver. It is an internal customer service instruction obtained by Live and Let\u2019s Fly<\/a>. Agents are told to use their \u201cempowerment\u201d to offer either Fort Lauderdale or Miami as an alternative and process the change as an \u201ceven exchange.\u201d United even gives agents a sympathetic script:<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that you\u2019d rather not fly to this airport anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach are different destinations, and normally changing which one a passenger flies to would require repricing the ticket and collecting any fare difference. United is now willing to absorb that difference when a passenger invokes the name \u2018Trump\u2019.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Passengers Are Threatening A Boycott<\/p>\n

People promising a broad boycott, but I do not see any evidence that they\u2019re actually undertaking one. Message submitted<\/a> through the airport\u2019s public contact form during the first five days of the new name show dozens of complaints, and indeed at least a dozen specifically promising to use Miami or Fort Lauderdale in the future instead. One person wrote, <\/p>\n

\u201cI will NEVER FLY INTO THERE. NEVER! You have 100% lost all my family\u2019s business.\u201d\t<\/p>\n

In contrast, only a handful of the messages praised the new name. That strikes me as just a reflection that people express complaints far more than satisfaction. Meanwhile, a Change.org petition opposing the rename<\/a> collected more than 1,300 verified signatures.<\/p>\n

Since the change only happened a week ago, it\u2019s too early to look to real booking and travel data to extrapolate an affect on passenger traffic. However, United\u2019s memo was certainly prompted by real concerns.<\/p>\n

United Is Playing Both Sides<\/p>\n

American Airlines gave agents a script explaining that the government changed the airport\u2019s name and the airline was following the official designation. American even broke its usual gate-display format to show \u201cPres DJT\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

United is taking a different approach: acknowledge the objection and move the customer somewhere else. Is United pandering to opponents of the President? Sure. But United also donated $1 million to Trump\u2019s inauguration, and CEO Scott Kirby has publicly defended administration policies even when they increase costs for aviation. He\u2019s expressly pandered to the MAGA movement<\/a> as well, just as he had been woke under Biden<\/a>. Here, heavily-regulated United chooses to flatter the President in Washington while flattering his opponents on the telephone. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A Cheap Way To Avoid A Political Fight<\/p>\n

United serves all three airports, and many passengers traveling to Boca Raton or points south may prefer Fort Lauderdale anyway. For someone actually going to Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale is about 50 miles away and Miami roughly 70 miles away. United will waive the difference in fare, not cover ground transportation.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore From View from the Wing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United Airlines is telling its reservation agents that customers who no longer want to fly to Palm Beach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250,2684],"class_list":["post-343083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}