SAN FRANCISCO — Oakland officers have voted in favor of shifting the identify of the city’s airport to San Francisco Bay Oakland Worldwide Airport, despite San Francisco threatening a lawsuit about what it states is a trademark violation.
The Board of Commissioners for the Port of Oakland voted unanimously Thursday to go ahead with the name-adjust and scheduled a 2nd vote for closing approval on May possibly 9. The airport is at present known as Oakland Intercontinental Airport.
Oakland airport officials have mentioned tourists unfamiliar with the area fly into San Francisco’s airport even if their location is closer to the Oakland airport throughout the Bay. Modifying the name to San Francisco Bay Oakland Worldwide Airport will transform that, they say. The airport’s three-letter code OAK would not improve.
“We are standing up for Oakland and the East Bay,” Port Fee President Barbara Leslie explained in a assertion after the vote. “This identify will make it apparent that OAK is the closest significant airport, for 4.1 million individuals, a few countrywide laboratories, the best public university in the place, and California’s Wine Place.”
For approximately an hour, the commissioners listened to general public remarks that involved some Oakland citizens and many airline reps who supported the identify-adjust, and associates of San Francisco tourism and hospitality pursuits who opposed it.
Some supporters questioned commissioners to consider obtaining Oakland forward of San Francisco in the new name.
After remaining approval will come subsequent month, “staff will go ahead with the official renaming, which include working with air carriers, other airports, and nearby businesses to replicate the modification in airport and airline techniques,” the port fee claimed in a statement.
Oakland airport officers authorized the name-transform at a time when the metropolis, like lots of other major metropolitan areas, is grappling with mounting criminal offense and the fallout from getting rid of the past qualified sports activities crew that termed the city of 430,000 people home. Past 7 days the Athletics declared that the group will go away Oakland after this year and participate in quickly at a insignificant league park near Sacramento right up until their planned new stadium in Las Vegas is designed.
With the A’s departing, the metropolis that was also property to the NFL’s Raiders, the NBA’s Warriors and the NHL’s Seals will have no significant sports teams.
The identify-alter suggestion had horrified San Francisco officials, who say it will confuse travelers, specifically individuals flying in from overseas. Ivar C. Satero, director of San Francisco’s airport, had mentioned they are “deeply concerned” around the possible for consumer confusion and disservice. San Francisco Town Lawyer David Chiu on Tuesday threatened to sue Oakland officers if they pursue the title-change, arguing it would violate the city’s trademark on “San Francisco International Airport.”
San Francisco “has held these registrations for this kind of a prolonged time that they have become incontestable less than federal legislation,” Chiu wrote in a letter to several Oakland officers.
Helen Han, a San Francisco resident, said she does not agree with switching the title because tourists could confuse the two, especially individuals viewing the Bay Region for the very first time.
“It would make a ton of confusion for people who are traveling to either Oakland or San Francisco,” Han explained. “I can visualize myself if it’s my to start with time going to SF, I would be definitely perplexed (when selecting) which airport I need to have to fly to.”
Aaron Peskin, president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, released a resolution very last 7 days opposing the name-transform and requesting the port fee reject it.
Condition Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, claimed on the social media system X that the airport shouldn’t be “cutting & pasting” San Francisco’s name.
“I love Oakland, but Oakland is Oakland. It’s not San Francisco,” he wrote. “Please find another way to change things all over.”
But other end users on X pointed out that San Francisco’s airport is truly positioned in Millbrae, a city in San Mateo County.
One particular human being quipped, “When are we renaming the 49ers? #SantaClara.” The San Francisco 49ers engage in at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, which sits just outside San Jose and is about 45 miles south of San Francisco.
Craig Simon, the Port of Oakland’s interim aviation director, said Metropolitan Oakland International Airport, as it’s officially regarded, missing 39 of 54 new routes additional from July 2008 to March 2024.
“Market analysis and interviews with airline associates have shown that routes have not done as nicely as they ought to have because of to the lack of geographic consciousness, producing air carriers unwilling to sustain and include new routes in Oakland,” Simon explained in a statement ahead of the vote.
