As a traveler, it can be understandably confusing if you booked a flight to the “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport,” only to find that on your travel day, you’re actually flying into “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.” There’s a whole chess game happening behind the scenes in the airport industry that results in seemingly baffling changes for travelers, some of which have made the airport experience feel worse and worse in recent times. An airport changing its name isn’t totally out of the ordinary — in 2001, for example, the New Orleans International Airport rebranded itself as the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. Oakland’s case is exceptional, though, in that it has undergone a name change twice in about a year, neither of which had anything to do with honoring local icons as New Orleans did.
The main drive for Oakland’s airport (OAK) name volatility is, simply put, optics. When the airport first changed its name from “Metropolitan Oakland International Airport” to the verbose “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport” in May 2024, it was mainly to boost passengers and, consequently, airlines. A press release from the Port of Oakland stated that the goal was to “attract more nonstop destinations by boosting travelers’ geographic awareness of the airport’s location,” claiming that many travelers might not realize that Oakland is located on the Bay.
The change only incited further mayhem. The city of San Francisco sued Oakland for the renaming, asserting that it would lead to confusion between OAK and its own San Francisco International Airport (SFO), CNN reported. So, finally, Oakland settled on a compromise: It would keep “San Francisco Bay” in the moniker, but lead with “Oakland,” officially rechristened “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport” in July 2025.
How to make sure you book the right airport in the Bay Area
San Francisco is one of the few cities where it’s fairly common for passengers to show up at the wrong airport because of the two airports sharing similar names. The name change putting “Oakland” as the first word in Oakland’s airport, though, makes it clearer to travelers whether they’re booking a flight to San Francisco or Oakland (about a 30-minute drive from downtown San Francisco). But there’s another discrepancy that the name-changing situation brings about, something that might be less obvious to travelers. For those who are familiar with the San Francisco International Airport, but less so with Oakland’s airport, is the Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport worth considering when traveling to the Bay Area?…