British Airways says it is urgently investigating why its inflight moving map displays the Spanish name for the capital of the Falkland Islands, an archipelago and British Overseas Territory located around 300 miles east off the coast of South America.
The British have claimed control of the Falkland Islands since 1833, but Argentina maintains that what it calls Islas Malvinas is Argentinian sovereign territory and the UK’s presence on the islands is illegal.
The Falkland Islanders last held a referendum on whether to remain under British control in 2013, which resulted in a landslide victory to maintain the status quo as a British territory. As a result, the islands have British place names, such as Stanley, which is the Falkland Islands’ capital.
An eagle-eyed British Airways passenger, however, noticed that the inflight moving map used by Britain’s flag carrier lists the Falkland Islands capital as Puerto Argentino – the Spanish name used by Argentina.
Underneath the Spanish name, the map also lists Stanley but in brackets in a similar fashion to how Google Maps displays the Gulf of America and then the Gulf of Mexico in a smaller typeface underneath.
The discrepancy was first spotted in December 2024, but British Airways says it is only now investigating the issue with its third-party map vendor after the Daily Mail blasted the airline for putting Argentina’s claim of the Falkland Islands over its own government.
A Six-Month Delay: BA Acts Only After Media Outrage
British Airways has only now started to investigate the naming issue on its inflight moving map after the popular British tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mail, blasted the airline over the apparent error.
The error was, however, first spotted by a frequent flyer in December 2024. At the time, the traveler wrote on the frequent flyer chatroom, Flyertalk: “What would the Foreign Office think of this? What would the Ministry of Defence think of this? And – most importantly – what would the Daily Mail and its readers think of this?”
We now have an answer!
Some commentators suggested British Airways had allowed the naming convention because it is part of the European International Airlines Group (IAG) which is headquartered in Madrid.
In response to the Daily Mail’s article, British Airways said: “We’re grateful this has been brought to our attention, and we are reviewing it with the third party supplier that provides the in-flight map service.”
Inflight moving map controversies
British Airways is not the first airline to have faced criticism with how it lists place names on its inflight moving map, and several carriers in recent years have been forced to issue groveling apologies.
Air Canada: In March, Air Canada said it had temporarily disabled the inflight moving map on certain aircraft because the state of Israel had been replaced with the ‘Palestinian Territories.’
JetBlue: Last September, JetBlue also made urgent changes to its inflight moving map after passengers spotted that it had also relabelled Israel as the ‘Palestinian Territories.’
In 2021, German flag carrier Lufthansa got sucked into a diplomatic row over the question of sovereignty of the Falkland Islands after it arranged to operate two special charter flights from Hamburg to Mount Pleasant for a polar climate change research expedition to Antarctica.
In preparation for the flights, Lufthansa submitted an application for overflight and landing with Argentina’s National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC). The Argentine government quickly seized the moment to declare that the application was a clear indication that Germany recognized the Argentinian sovereignty of the archipelago.
Germany’s foreign ministry was forced to point out that it was not responsible for the application.
BA?
Apologise?
They couldn’t even spell it, let alone mean it…
Beyond Abysmal (and I’m British)
Maybe the inflight map is specifically programmed to this nomenclature exclusively on BA’s EZE service to appease/appeal to the Portenos & their $$$$ …. !
lol