This week marked 20 years since Liverpool Airport opened its new terminal building and officially rebranded as Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
Though Speke has had an airport since the 1930s, the international transport hub that passengers use today is only two decades old. On July 25, 2002, Yoko Ono and the Queen cut the ribbon to open Liverpool John Lennon Airport formally.
Construction on the new terminal building began in 2000 and the airport was given John Lennon's name in 2001, before the formal opening a year later. It marked the culmination of a rebrand, driven by new ownership and easyJet making the decision to operate flights from Liverpool.
READ MORE: Liverpool John Lennon Airport's journey from WWII airbase to international terminal
The airport's Head of PR and Communications Robin Tudor spoke to the ECHO about how the name change happened and how it represented a new era for Liverpool Airport.
Peel Holdings bought Liverpool Airport during the 1990s. Commonly referred to as Speke Airport at that point, it offered flights to Dublin, Belfast and the Isle of Man. Shortly after the purchase, easyJet made the decision to operate from Liverpool, in order to serve northern England.
At that time, easyJet's presence in the UK was rather limited, only really operating from London Luton Airport. Its decision to fly from Liverpool meant that the airport would be offering flights to far-flung European destinations - quite the change from the three routes it offered at the time.
Robin described the arrival of easyJet as a coup for the airport, but said it meant major infrastructural change was required. He told the ECHO: "If it was to be successful, it meant that the building that we had was never going to cope. At that time, the terminal building resembled more of a B&Q warehouse - no disrespect to B&Q.
"It was a very functional, very small, very simple building that had a front door, a back door, a handful of check in desks and a small departure lounge in between. That was about it. As Peel came in and as easyJet came in, there was a need to grow the airport for the first time in many years."
Construction began on a new terminal and Peel saw it as a chance to make a statement and "relaunch" the airport, according to Robin. easyJet's arrival was a transformational change that turned the airport into an international hub.
As such, Peel wished to rebrand the airport. A delegation set off on a global research trip, looking at how other airports had expanded.
Robin said: " The story goes that one of the places that they went to was an airport in Orange County, California - called John Wayne Airport. Outside of that airport is a big statue of the Western actor John Wayne.
"It set the seed in people’s minds that if we’re going to rebrand, why don’t we look at the name of the airport to set its stall out going forward that this is a new era - it’s not what we were."
" At that time, we were just called Liverpool Airport, but to many, we were referred to as Speke Airport. That was synonymous with the original terminal building, which we’d moved out of in the mid-80s and is now the Crowne Plaza hotel.
"It was a case of trying to move away from all of that and show that it was a different airport now - it was a statement to showcase the airport to potential future airlines as well."
After consultation with stakeholders and partners across the Liverpool city region, it did not take long before the airport homed in on The Beatles as the city's most prominent association. Robin said that John Lennon was the standout choice.
At that point, no airport in the UK bore the name of an individual. Though a tradition in other countries - such as JFK in New York and Paris Charles De Gaulle - Liverpool would be the first city in the UK to name its airport after a person. George Best Belfast City Airport has become the second - and so-far only other UK airport to do so.
Peel had to seek permission from Yoko Ono in order to use John Lennon's name. Fortunately, she was more than happy to get behind the idea.
Robin said: " The other coup in all of this was that, having approached Yoko Ono, she was completely behind it, loved the idea behind it and she wanted to get involved, which again just made it even better for us. To have her endorsement behind it would be fantastic in terms of getting the name out there."
In 2001, Yoko made the announcement that the airport would be called Liverpool John Lennon during a press conference. A statue of her former Beatle husband was then installed in spring 2002, which Yoko unveiled alongside Cherie Blair, who was on a trip to Merseyside with then-PM Tony.
The culmination of the airport's rebirth came with the formal opening of the new terminal. Yoko came back again, this time alongside the Queen - who was in the region as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations - to cut the ribbon on the new £42.5m building.
Robin said: " It was a great day - it did really put the seal on the airport changing and people’s perceptions of it." He added: "It was a rapidly expanding airport - one of the fastest growing in the UK, now with a host of European destinations, thanks to easyJet, Ryanair had also committed to put more flights through."
" When it was just Speke Airport and in the old terminal building, there is no doubt that the majority of people who were using it were from the local catchment area. In the mid-90s, the airport had flights to the Isle of Man, Dublin and Belfast and that was it.
"That would two or three a day to each destination. It would be 9 or 10 departures a day and in the summer, it would be supplemented - if we were lucky - with the odd weekly charter flight to Mallorca."
" We were probably serving half a million passengers, but we now serve 5 million. It was a huge transformation in terms of physical infrastructure in the terminal building that we have today and the airlines and destinations that we now feature."
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