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Oakland Airport is getting in trouble for its new name

A judge ordered it to stop including “San Francisco Bay” in its title.

Erika Mailman
Written by
Erika Mailman
San Francisco and USA contributor
Oakland airport sign
Photograph: Michael Vi / Shutterstock.com
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A judge ruled yesterday that Oakland’s airport must immediately stop using the name “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport,” which it adopted earlier this year, and revert back to the name “Oakland International Airport,” according to NBC News.

It was pretty ballsy of Oakland to tuck the wording “San Francisco Bay” in front of its long-existing name. Of course, it hopes to benefit from association with the more well-known city and capture more passengers who want to get to the Bay Area. In some ways, it makes sense: When you check Google Flights for New York City, you’re given three options (LaGuardia, JFK and Newark, although Newark is actually in New Jersey) and when you fly into Chicago, you may mean O’Hare or Midway. Large cities can support more than one airport.

But there’s concern that travelers could be confused and book a flight into Oakland, thinking it’s San Francisco (rather than the San Francisco Bay Area) and then have a stressful time working their way across the bay to the city. To be fair, depending on traffic, it’s basically “six of one, half dozen of another” getting to San Francisco’s downtown from either OAK or SFO. Recently, I plugged in the estimated travel time by car from both airports to downtown’s Civic Center. Although it’s 19.8 miles from OAK and 13.7 from SFO, Oakland’s drive time only added one minute over San Francisco’s 43 minutes on a Thursday early evening (plus you would get to enjoy the beautiful upper deck of the Bay Bridge).

There is a more distinct difference, though, when you look at ride times on BART. It takes about an hour to get from Oakland airport’s BART station to Civic Center, and only about a half-hour from San Francisco airport’s BART station.

The debate will probably rage on for a while; the injunction is technically just temporary, and Oakland is likely to appeal the ruling.

Also, we have to point out another interesting wrinkle: SFO actually isn’t in San Francisco, either. According to the airport’s website, “The airport is located about 14 miles south of San Francisco primarily in unincorporated San Mateo County on the San Francisco Peninsula next to the San Francisco Bay.” Prior to 1931, its name was the Mills Field Municipal Airport of San Francisco.

If Oakland is ultimately able to overturn the judge’s ruling, we’d personally suggest they need to amplify the message that the flights are going into Oakland and not San Francisco: No one wants to feel tricked. We can just imagine the bewilderment when the captain announces to the clicked-in passengers that the flight is going to Oakland when some passengers might have thought it was going to San Francisco. Another option could be for Oakland to better advertise its proximity to San Francisco while still keeping, with pride, its name.

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