King Charles III has allegedly snubbed an offer by Heathrow Airport to rename Terminal 5 in honour of him, fearing that as an environmentally conscious head of state, such a move would send out the wrong signals.
Heathrow Airport reportedly wanted to rename Terminal 5 to mark the King’s coronation which will take place next month but Buckingham Palace had to get government ministers involved to rebuff the plans, according to The Times.
King Charles last visited Terminal 5 in 2018 when he was then the Prince of Wales, where he met various airport workers and a bomb detection dog to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the terminal.
The King was also pictured touring a British Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner and sitting in the Captain’s seat as he learned more about the fuel-efficient aircraft.
Heathrow last named an airport terminal after a reigning monarch in 2013 when it decided to call the newly built Terminal 2, The Queen’s Terminal, in honour of Queen Elizabeth II.
Sources told The Times that King Charles was, however, less receptive than his mother to the idea of an airport terminal being named after him.
Heathrow had approached the government and Buckingham Palace earlier this year in the hope of winning permission to rename Terminal 5 in honour of King Charles, claiming that there were longstanding links between the monarch and the airport.
Buckingham Palace dismissed the idea that Charles had close connections with Heathrow, according to one source.
