A petition urging officials to rename Nashville International Airport after Dolly Parton has surged past 54,000 signatures in the days following her death at age 80 in Tennessee, reviving a grassroots campaign that began more than a year and a half ago. The petition asks that BNA become “Dolly Parton International Airport,” with organizers pointing to her decades of influence as a performer, songwriter and philanthropist.
The petition had reached 54,322 signatures as of Tuesday, according to WZTV, which reported that the campaign gained renewed attention following Parton's death. The station reported that it reached out to the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority for comment. The petition was originally created on January 21, 2025, not as a fresh tribute but as a direct response to a state lawmaker's bill.
Born As a Counter to a Trump Airport Bill
That January 2025 measure, House Bill 217 from Tennessee State Representative Todd Warner, proposed renaming Nashville International Airport “Trump International Airport,” according to WPLN News. The bill followed years of political friction between state lawmakers and Metro Nashville leadership, per the same outlet's reporting. It stalled a month later when the House Naming and Designating Committee handed it a 6-4 negative recommendation and took it off notice, as reported by WBIR.
The Parton petition, per WZTV's reporting, does not itself change the airport's name; that authority rests with state legislators and the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority, the board that oversees the facility. Petition organizers say naming the airport for Parton would honor her contributions to Tennessee and the world, citing her rise to international stardom through hits including “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “9 to 5.”
An Airport With Its Own Long History
Nashville International Airport did not start out under either name being debated online. It opened in June 1937 as Berry Field, honoring Tennessee Works Progress Administration administrator Col. Harry S. Berry, a naming choice that produced the airport's lasting three-letter code, BNA, according to Exhibit City News. The facility did not officially become Nashville International Airport until 1988, per the same account.
The stakes of any rename are far from symbolic. The airport handled a record 26.7 million passengers during fiscal year 2026, a 7.7 percent year-over-year increase, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority, as the facility pushes forward with its multi-billion-dollar New Horizon capital expansion project. Renaming a major commercial airport also triggers extensive coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration to update airspace databases, safety certificates and flight charts, as demonstrated during the July 2026 rebranding of Palm Beach International Airport to President Donald J. Trump International Airport, according to AVweb. FAA regulations give operators up to 90 days to update flight documentation once such a transition is approved, per the same report.
Who Actually Controls the Airport's Name
Any rename would also run through a board that has itself become a political flashpoint. The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation in 2023 restructuring the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority board to replace local city appointees with state-appointed members, triggering a legal battle between Nashville city officials and the state government, according to the Nashville Scene. Metro Nashville eventually regained three local appointments on the nine-member board, the outlet reported.
Parton has not been shy about her feelings on public monuments in the past. In February 2021, she publicly asked Tennessee state legislators to withdraw a bill proposing a statue of her on the Capitol grounds in Nashville, saying she did not feel putting herself on a pedestal was appropriate at the time, according to CBS News. She noted then that she might accept such an honor later in life, or after her death, the network reported.
A Legacy Beyond Music
Petition organizers have also leaned on Parton's philanthropic record beyond her recording career. She founded the Imagination Library, which provides free books to children, a program that surpassed 300 million free books distributed worldwide by late 2025, gifting more than 40 million in 2025 alone, according to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. The program sends monthly books to children from birth to age five across five countries, per the organization's own year-in-review report.
Naming a major airport after an entertainer rather than a politician would not be unprecedented nationally. Several major U.S. airports already carry the names of cultural icons rather than officeholders, including Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, Hollywood Burbank Airport, formerly Bob Hope Airport, and John Wayne Airport in California, according to Passrider. Such choices are often made, the site notes, to reflect regional identity and local pride.
For now, the petition remains a public expression of sentiment rather than a binding proposal. Whether Tennessee lawmakers or the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority take up the idea remains an open question, one that will likely hinge on the same state-versus-local dynamics that have already shaped both the failed Trump renaming bill and the fight over who controls the airport's governing board.
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