Should Peter O. Knight Airport be Renamed?

What do you think: Should Peter O. Knight airport be renamed? Vote in the poll below or post your new name suggestion in the comments section.

The name of an airport may not seem like a big deal, but to a local community activists who have also previously been involved in trying to save the Friendship Trail Bridge, it is.

The group calling itself Camelot Florida is working toward having the name of the Peter O. Knight airport on Davis Islands changed to something more reflective of its location. A name like Tampa Downtown Airport, they say, is more logical to local pilots who use the airport, and it even conquers what they consider to be a "safety issue."

"What you call things is important, and if you look at the other public airports in Florida, they're all named after where they are located," said Neil Cosentino, a Davis Islands resident and proponent of the name change. "Unless you have flown into this airport previously, you would never know where Peter O. Knight airport is located. For pilots coming in, it creates a safety issue because the name of the airport is meaningless unless you know the airport well."

In Cosentino's eyes, the airport's name should be changed for another reason, as well. Peter O. Knight was many things to the Gulf Coast — primarily a successful businessman, lawyer and former Mayor of Fort Myers in the late 1880s — but a pilot he was not.

"It just makes more sense to call the terminal the Peter O. Knight terminal so that his name stays connected to it and change the name of the airport to something that reflects the community where it sits," Cosentino said. "The public owns that airport, so the name should represent the public."