Hi,

My question is this: I think Clive said the placement of the article 'the'  for the names of airports is idiomatic and if a person who travels often wants to point to an airport with the name (which I made up) 'Believer's Airport' might call it "The Believer's Airport."

I forget the details of what we discussed, but let me briefly review my thought on this.

Many airports are named after a place, eg the city of XYZ might have an airport called 'XYZ Airport'. 

If I live in XYZ, I'd probably just say 'I saw Tom at the airport'. 

If I don't live in XYZ but I travel a lot via different airports, I might say 'I saw Tom at the XYZ airport', because in my mind I am trying to distinguish it from the airport in the city of ABC. I might equally say 'I saw Tom at the airport in XYZ'. 

OK, but I think I saw this from Paco's post that said something like that it is a rule in English the proper name for any airport doesn't take THE.  I don't know what Paco said, but this sounds odd to me.

In addition, my advice is that you avoid thinking that English has rigid 'rules' for such things. Do you think they issue each English-speaking baby with a rule-book?     

Best wishes, Clive