Efforts to change Milan airport's name hit hard landing in Italy

The airport in Italy's capital Rome bears the name of the Renaissance genius: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1619).

The airport of the lagoon city of Venice is named after its most famous son, world traveller Marco Polo (1254-1324).

And now the Milan Airport, the country's financial and economic centre, is named after Silvio Berlusconi (1936-2023), Italy's most controversial politician of recent decades and one of the country's greatest dividers even after his death.

His supporters are jubilant

His opponents are outraged - in part because Italy's right-wing three-party coalition led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, which includes the Berlusconi party Forza Italia (Forward Italy), rushed everything through.

After all, with Marco Polo, it took almost seven centuries from his death to getting his name on an airport, and with Leonardo da Vinci three and a half.

In the case of Berlusconi, only a year has passed since his death from cancer at the age of 86, though the circumstances have changed of course, as there were no airports back in the day.

Left rages about 'banana republic'

Still, it took less than a week from the announcement by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini that Italy's second largest airport, Milan-Malpensa, would become Aeroporto Silvio Berlusconi, to the actual name change, a move described in La Repubblica newspaper as a "blitz."

The leader of the right-wing Lega party probably knows better than anyone else in Italy how to best annoy the left.

After Salvini signed the decree, he also expressed his "great satisfaction" about the name change - prompting the opposition to slam Italy as a "banana republic."

It may not be far fetched to imagine Berlusconi himself would be amused by the furore. The construction and media entrepreneur was one of the most controversial figures in Italian politics. Despite a series of affairs, scandals and convictions, the right-wing populist was prime minister four times, most recently until 2011. He was also at the helm of the AC Milan football club for many years.

Merkel also has a Milan airport moment

The airport already made headlines in Germany in 2010 when former chancellor Angela Merkel was forced to land there, diverted on a trip back from the United States after the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull.

Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister at the time, offered Merkel the chance to stay overnight in his villa and then fly on from the Malpensa airport.

Merkel responded no thank you, saying she would prefer to travel by bus.

For Italy's right-wing, renaming the airport is an appropriate "recognition for a man who has served our country for so many years."

The opposition, on the other hand, dismissed the name change as indication of a "total decay of our institutions."

Many on the left still despise Berlusconi and are unwilling to accept the airport's new name.

Thousands sign online petitions against Aeroporto Silvio Berlusconi on a daily basis, with many hoping to reverse the decision by taking legal action.

Law allows name changes 10 years post death

Berlusconi opponents point to a regulation saying public buildings and squares in Italy may only be named after a famous person 10 years after their death.

They are also pinning their hopes on the centre-left government of the city of Milan - and its stake in the airport operating company.

"Rules are to be followed," says Milan Mayor Beppe Sala of the European Green Party.

Some have also already announced that they will put up civil resistance - to the extent of saying they will never use an airport named after Silvio Berlusconi in their lifetime.

That could be difficult. Milan does have two other airports, Linate and Milan Bergamo, though neither is so well connected.

Meanwhile netizens are sharing photomontages online showing alternatives for the Milan airport, such as Aeroporto Bunga Bunga, referring to the former prime minister's parties with minors.

And there are counter proposals, such as renaming Milan's Palace of Justice, where the right-wing populist often stood trial and was convicted. Or even calling small side streets in less favourable corners of the city Via Berlusconi.

Population usually does not join in

Others hope that usually, renaming airports has little effect in reality, pointing to the fact that few in Rome call their airport Leonardo da Vinci, while in Berlin, hardly anyone refers to BER as Willy Brandt.

But one thing is certain: Berlusconi or not: the international code that the airlines use remains unchanged at MXP, which refers to Malpensa.

Derived from "mal pensáa," a term in the Milanese dialect for the settlement there, the soil in the region was not particularly fertile - so locating there was, in Italian, "mal pensata," or badly thought out.

Just like the new name, critics say.