Tourism chamber wants to change Costa Rica airport code, name over confusion with African nation

June 5^th, 2015 (InsideCostaRica.com) The Guanacaste Tourism Chamber (Cataurgua) wants the international airport in Liberia, in the popular tourism hotspot that is the Guanacaste province in northern Costa Rica, to be identified as “Guanacaste” instead of “Liberia” by international aviation authorities and to change its airport code from LIR to GNT, due to confusion with the West African nation of Liberia.

A proposal for the change has been submitted to Costa Rica’s civil aviation authorities.  Those who support the change say that travelers routinely confuse Liberia, Guanacaste and the West African nation that has only recently recovered from the outbreak of the Ebola virus.

In addition to confusion by travelers, some tourists returning to the United States from Liberia, Costa Rica were subjected to Ebola screening at U.S. airports upon their return by authorities who themselves seemed to be confused, Chamber president, Priscilla Solano told La Nacion.

The request remains pending review by Costa Rica’s civil aviation authorities.  “GTE,” an acronym commonly used to refer to Guanacaste in Costa Rica, is the airport code for an airport in Australia, and is thus unavailable for use as an airport code by the Liberia airport, officially known as the Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport.