Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is being brutally mocked for prioritizing sucking up to President Donald Trump over addressing air travel chaos that includes a crash at a major U.S airport.
Palm Beach International Airport has officially been greenlit to be renamed the “President Donald J. Trump International Airport” after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly signed off on the legislation on Monday.
A day after the change became official, Duffy made it known that he is already hard at work to ensure that the airport, whose current code is PBI, is given a more fitting three-letter code to please his boss.
Duffy posted, “The FAA is working on changing PBI’s airport code RIGHT NOW… the name change to Donald J. Trump International Airport already official!”
“Stay tuned,” he added, along with the eyeballs emoji.
Duffy was immediately called out for focusing more on the vain name change over a fatal crash that occurred at New York’s LaGuardia Airport last week. A collision with a fire truck left two Air Canada pilots dead after an understaffed control tower appeared to grant clearances that put a fire truck in the path of the landing regional jet.
“Because that’s the most important thing for the FAA to be focused on,” one Florida-based user on X said of Duffy’s airport post. “Not planes hitting fire trucks or helicopters.”
“You just had a plane fly into an airport crash truck, and this is what you are focused on,” wrote another user. “Do you take this job serious or is all just about pandering to trump. FYI, I will never fly into that airport ever.”
A third posted “great!” and asked sarcastically, “How does this address the national air traffic controller shortage?”
A fourth chimed in, “How about you address the whole crashing & ATC issues. You know, your job.”
The main road that leads from Palm Beach International Airport to the president’s Mar-a-Lago club was already renamed Donald J. Trump Boulevard earlier this year.
Mar-a-Lago is just five miles east of the airport, which boasts international flights to Canada and the Bahamas, but is significantly smaller than the region’s major airports in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Save for John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), other airports named after presidents have not had their codes changed. Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Regan National Airport kept its code of DCA, Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan, remains GRR, and George Bush Intercontinental in Houston is still known as IAH.
The body that would have to officially rename the Palm Beach airport’s code is the International Air Transport Association. The Canada-based organization has managed and recognized airport codes worldwide for decades and has given no indication whether it will approve a code change for the president or Duffy.
The state legislation that changed the airport’s name did not require its three-letter code to be altered. However, Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican who represents Trump in Congress, has put forward federal legislation in the House to change the airport code to DJT.
If the IATA were to permit a change, the three-letter code DJT—the president’s initials—is not in use elsewhere.
Reached for comment, the FAA referred the Daily Beast to Duffy’s post but did not say what specific efforts it is taking to have the airport’s code changed.
The IATA did not respond to a request for comment.
