Greensboro News & Record reports the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority voted temporarily shelve the new name—Central North Carolina International Airport—until a study has been completed with adequate public input.

The decision comes after considerable public outcry over the new name:

Kevin Baker, PTI’s executive director, said after Tuesday’s meeting that officials had no idea reaction would be so intense.

“Nobody expected the kind of public interest in the name,” he said.

He added that the board hasn’t set a deadline for when the airport’s name would change — if it does at all.

“There will be a specific and definite process for public input as time goes on,” he said.

Many letters to the editor in the N&R suggest the airport be named what it basically is — Greensboro International Airport. But that’s not so simple, considering the regional makeup of the airport authority, which includes Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines. In a comment beneath the N&R write-up, a Winston-Salem State University economics professor makes a good point when he writes ” I seriously doubt that High Point and Winston-Salem would acquiesce to having the airport named Greensboro International Airport. No doubt they would want the names of their cities to be in there as well if Greensboro is listed.”

But here’s the brutal truth, as voiced by Airport Authority chairman Steve Showfety in N&R ed page editor Allen Johnson’s recent column:

Showfety said only one thing remains certain: The name will not revert to PTI. “I could not, in good conscience, go back to that name,” Showfety said. “The results speak for themselves.”

If the flights were going in and out of PTI then they could name it most anything—well, except something Confederate.