While the city of Oakland has been popularized by musical legends such as Tupac Shakur and MC Hammer, the Bay Area city often lacks recognition as a place that one can fly into.
While it has an airport which serves different parts of the U.S. as well as multiple international destinations, Metropolitan Oakland International Airport (OAK) often gets eclipsed by the much larger San Francisco International Airport (SFO) which sits across the bay and is only a 30-minute drive away. The two airports are also equidistant from downtown San Francisco.
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In order to encourage more visitors to consider their airport as an option for flying into San Francisco, officials for the city of Oakland announced that they are mulling over whether to add “San Francisco Bay” into its name — without it, tourists from outside the area might not realize how near it is to the city when searching for their flights and browsing options.
A Spirit Airlines plane prepares to take off from Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
New name would ‘improve travelers’ geographic awareness’
“Adding ‘San Francisco Bay’ to the name will improve travelers’ geographic awareness of the airport and help us reach and succeed in new markets,” Barbara Leslie, who heads the Oakland Board of Commissioners, said in a statement to the press.
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While considered a secondary airport served primarily by low-cost airlines, OAK has been expanding fast post-pandemic and currently serves 46 destinations. The same officials have also been petitioning for airlines to add more routes from the city in order to bring more economic activity to Oakland.
According to Leslie, at least one-third of American travelers and even more international ones do not associate the name Oakland with proximity to San Francisco while the two airports are both within a 20-minute drive from the city.
‘Routes have not performed as well as they should…’
As a result, Port of Oakland Commissioners will weigh in on whether adding “San Francisco Bay Area” to the airport’s name makes sense at their monthly meeting on April 11. They will then be able to proceed with any “formal renaming, including working with air carriers, other airports and local agencies to reflect the modification in airport and airline systems” — while the change needs to be voted in and formally approved, the phrasing sounds like most are onboard and it is more or less a done decision.
The city also said that this could help protect “over 30,000 good-paying, direct jobs” and bring “$1.6 billion in economic impact on the region” both through airport use itself and the larger number of travelers who become interested in Oakland and decide to spend some time exploring its historic downtown as a result of flying through it.
“Market research and interviews with airline partners have shown that routes have not performed as well as they should have due to the lack of geographic awareness, making air carriers reluctant to sustain and add new routes in Oakland,” Craig Simon, who is the current interim aviation director for the Port of Oakland, said in a further statement. “From July 2008 to March 2024, the Airport added 54 new routes; 39 of these and 6 pre-existing destinations were lost.”
