Earlier this month, my original letter to your newspaper made the point that “Anguilla does not have an international airport”. I made it clear that I wholeheartedly endorsed the naming of this important facility in honour of our beloved pilot, the late Clayton J. Lloyd, who gave his life for aviation and in the service of Anguilla.

My letter generated one from Prof. Yinka G. Lloyd Stanford who, after quoting exhaustively from my correspondence, concluded as follows: “I see no reason to remove the word “international” from the sign at Anguilla’s airstrip. Although it may seem as creating an illusion, why not retain the use of “international”, as it conveys a positive public relations image of Cap. Clayton J. Lloyd International Airport.”

Well, what I can say, other than to maintain my above position? It certainly cannot be merely a public relations exercise to loosely call an airport “international” however good it may sound. Reality is reality and, according to the own admission of the letter writer in reference, “it may seem as creating an illusion”.

I wonder what the Hon. Hubert Hughes (who was off island when the ceremonial naming of the airport took place) would have said at the function. Would he have repeated his oft-said statement that the airport is dead and a waste of money? And that the illusive Brimigen International Airport is what should be pursued?

In any case, I would have passionately disagreed with him because there is an important role for the present airport in the continued development of Anguilla.

Let us sensibly call our historical airstrip the “Clayton J. Lloyd Airport”. It is ridiculous to call it an “international”airport. The people at the airport should know better than calling it so when they issued their press releases regarding the recent fire truck problem.

I hope the air traffic controllers, who must be professionally trained, are not referring to our airport as being “international”.

Please let us be reasonable. Simply dismount the sign, take out the word “international;” and put up the sign board again. What is wrong with that? Case closed. Welcome to the Clayton J. Lloyd Airport!

Calling a spade a spade

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