A former minister is suggesting that the Malta International Airport is named after former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff.

Reno Calleja, who was a Labour MP for 20 years and served as Tourism Minister between 1981 and 1983, made the suggestion on One TV and repeated it to pro-Labour newspaper l-orizzont.

He said he understood that his proposal is controversial, but said there were other controversial politicians who had airports named after them, such as Charles de Gaulle in Paris, France and John F. Kennedy in New York, in the United States.

In comments to l-orizzont, Calleja said that he also understood that the airport is run by a private company and that an agreement needed to be reached.

But he said he believed that Mintoff, who was the country’s PM between 1955 and 1958, and between 1971 and 1984, was the dominant figure in Maltese politics in the last 100 years and no one had a bigger impact on Malta than he did.