{"id":361379,"date":"2026-08-03T11:17:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/361379\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T11:17:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:17:23","slug":"a-federal-judge-has-ruled-that-orlando-sanford-international-airport-can-trademark-its-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/361379\/","title":{"rendered":"A federal judge has ruled that Orlando Sanford International Airport can trademark its name"},"content":{"rendered":"

A decades-long dispute<\/a> over whether the words \u201cOrlando\u201d and \u201cinternational\u201d perplex travelers when used for multiple airports\u00a0has finally reached an end \u2014 and the Orlando Sanford International Airport will be allowed to keep its name and logo.<\/p>\n

A federal judge last week approved a settlement between the authority that runs the behemoth Orlando International Airport \u2014 one of the nation\u2019s busiest \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe parties have now been coexisting for nearly 30 years,\u201d U.S. District Judge Paul Byron wrote in his July 22 order.<\/p>\n

He directed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Virginia to register the name Orlando Sanford International Airport.<\/p>\n

\"TrafficTraffic is lined up at the entrance to Orlando Sanford International Airport on Friday, July 31, 2026. (Stephen M. Dowell\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

If travelers become befuddled over the names, then both airports \u201cwill take steps to address such confusion in their sole and exclusive discretion,\u201d according to the settlement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost travelers are now aware that there are two airports in the region with similar names,\u201d said Angela Starke, a spokeswoman for the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, or GOAA, which oversees the larger airport, in a written statement.<\/p>\n

She added the Orlando airport\u2019s leaders have \u201cdetermined the energy\u2026could be better used on other priorities, such as the several improvement projects already underway.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s brand, it still sends a signal to tourists and business travelers that it is a gateway to the broader region.<\/p>\n

Yet since 1997, when the Sanford airport adopted its current moniker, GOAA has griped that the smaller air field \u2014 more than 30 miles to the north and about an hour\u2019s drive depending on traffic \u2014 had hijacked its name.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly option was to purchase new tickets home for the flight 2 days later. No transfer or refund,\u201d according to his email in court records. \u201cThis isn\u2019t right.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to court records, a flyer with the Twitter name The FAM posted in 2019: \u201cOMG, I\u2019m at the wrong airport! Apparently there [are] 2 Orlando International airports. I\u2019m 45 minutes away and my flight leaves in 60 minutes\u2026WTF do I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Other travelers complained their flight landed at one airport but their rental car reservations were at the other airport.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

GOAA is attempting \u201cto monopolize the phrase Orlando International Airport,\u201d the lawsuit said, and the dispute dragged on.<\/p>\n

Finally, in a June 17 memo to GOAA\u2019s board, attorney Jeff Aaron urged members to give up the fight.<\/p>\n

Confused travelers using the wrong airport \u201chad fallen dramatically \u2014 from more than 2,200 several years ago to three in calendar year 2026,\u201d according to Aaron\u2019s memo, without specifying the source of those numbers.\u201cThis resolution allows GOAA to avoid the expense of a trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanford airport officials also said they were pleased with the outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to finally see the Sanford Airport Authority obtain the rights to its name and secure those into the future,\u201d said Brett Renton, a partner with Shutts & Bowen law firm and outside general counsel to the Sanford Airport Authority.<\/p>\n

Sanford\u2019s battle over the use of \u201cOrlando\u201d 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 \u2014 nearly 60 miles from Orlando \u2014 as having stolen the Orlando brand.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Flyers can rest easy, however. There\u2019s virtually no chance a pilot, air traffic controller, or baggage handler would confuse the airports as they use unique three-letter codes.<\/p>\n

The Sanford airport is called SFB and Melbourne\u2019s is MLB. Ironically, the city name Orlando isn\u2019t indicated at all in its airport\u2019s code. It goes by MCO, which comes from its origins as McCoy Air Force Base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decades-long dispute over whether the words \u201cOrlando\u201d and \u201cinternational\u201d perplex travelers when used for multiple airports\u00a0has finally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,2647,1014,109,76686,1798],"class_list":["post-361379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sanford","tag-seminole-county","tag-social","tag-social-business","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361379","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=361379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}