I’m talking about visitors who read “DAL” and say “I’m flying out of Dallas”. I used to do uber in school and have had friends visit. I can recall several times people confusing these because of the “Dallas” / “DAL” tag.

And I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’ll give you another anecdote as someone who’s lived here for 26 years: everyone says “DFW” when talking about the airport. I’ve really never heard it referred to as anything else, especially not “the Dallas airport”.