- Oakland officials voted to add “San Francisco” to their city’s airport name.
- San Francisco is not having it.
- Oakland officials say the name change would bring more travelers to their airport, bolstering the city’s economy.
Oakland Airport wants what San Francisco has — its name.
The Port of Oakland’s Board of Commissioners decided in a unanimous vote on Thursday to change the name of their airport from “Metropolitan Oakland International Airport” to “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.”
Oakland officials argue that because the name change would more accurately represent the airport’s location in the San Francisco Bay, it would increase the airport’s traffic, and in turn, bolster the city’s economy.
The Port of Oakland estimated in an agenda report that the name change, which would not alter the airport’s three-letter code “OAK,” would cost $150,000 to implement.
Port officials in Oakland argued that their airport is just as close, if not closer, to many parts of San Francisco as San Francisco’s SFO is, when traveling via the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
But, San Francisco officials don’t want to share.
Ahead of Oakland’s Thursday vote, San Francisco’s city attorney David Chiu posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the name change “would cause immense confusion for travelers and infringes on SFO’s trademark.”
“If these plans are not abandoned, SF will take legal action,” he added. Chiu also wrote a letter to the Oakland Port’s Board President and other officials urging them to reconsider.
San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, also formally voiced her opposition in a letter to Oakland officials, taking the time to throw a bit of shade at OAK.
“We encourage Oakland Airport to follow a similar model to SFO and grow its airport services rather than adding ‘San Francisco’ to its name,” Breed wrote.
“Oakland is a great city with a rich history,” she added. “It does not need the name San Francisco as part of its airport to stand out.”
But Oakland officials say the city actually really does need it.
“I think 30,000 jobs and tax revenue is on the line,” Oakland Port board member Yui Hay Lee said before the vote, according to The Wall Street Journal. “The bottom line is we really have no choice. Doing nothing is not an option.”
The city of Oakland — which has a population of over 400,000 people, according to the US Census Bureau — has faced serious financial setbacks in recent years.
After closing its largest ever budget shortfall, a deficit of about $360 million last summer, the city has since found a $177 million hole in its two-year fiscal plan, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in March.
