Oakland International Airport (OAK) is rebranding once again, trying to take advantage of its proximity to San Francisco. Will San Francisco International Airport (SFO) object this time around?
Drama over Oakland Airport’s controversial rebranding
Airports are businesses, and of course they do what they can to attract as much traffic as possible. In early 2024, we saw the Port of Oakland try to rebrand its international airport, as “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.”
The idea behind this was obvious — OAK wanted to emphasize its proximity to San Francisco, to get more traffic among travelers looking to visit San Francisco. As you’d expect, executives at SFO weren’t happy about this, because any gain for OAK would be a loss for SFO. So they filed a lawsuit to try and block this rebranding.
A judge granted a preliminary injunction against OAK, demanding that the airport stop using the name “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport,” and to not use “San Francisco Bay” in any promotions or products.
The judge decided that SFO would suffer irreparable harm from OAK’s name change, and that OAK violated SFO’s trademark for the airport. As the judge explained, “because the two airports offer identical services, the near identity of the marks makes them confusingly similar,” and that using the term “San Francisco” in OAK’s name “when there is in fact no affiliation, connection or association between the Oakland airport and San Francisco is contrary to how airports in the United States are normally named.”
Oakland Airport tries to add San Francisco to name, again
The Port of Oakland has now announced a new name for OAK, as the airport is being rebranded as “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.” Essentially, authorities are trying to do the same thing as last year, except they’re reversing the order of “Oakland” and “San Francisco Bay.”
Here’s how Craig Simon, Director of Aviation at the Port of Oakland, describes this:
“We are proud to be a central gateway to the Bay Area, and we’re proud to embrace a name that reflects both our local roots and regional reach. ‘Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport’ does both, putting Oakland first and highlighting our central location in the Bay Area for all visitors.”
The Port Board will consider adopting the new name at its July 10, 2025, meeting. Ahead of this, OAK executives have sent a letter to SFO executives, justifying why they believe that this is appropriate:
This new name is responsive to the court’s Order and your prior stated concerns about the existing Board Approved Name. It does not incorporate the entirety of SFO’s name and it does not start with the words “San Francisco.” Instead, it leads with “Oakland” — drawing an immediate connection to its location and identity as part of the City of Oakland (not the City and County of San Francisco), and is then followed by OAK’s location on the Bay. Many other airports use similar naming conventions to indicate geographic location or proximity. Given these changes, the City should not have any concerns about any purported potential for consumer confusion regarding the proposed name.
I’m no lawyer, but I feel like this name change is reasonable. I can understand the objection if the airport’s name started with “San Francisco,” and how that could cause confusion. However, “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport” seems totally reasonable to me. After all, the airport is in Oakland, and the body of water that it’s on is called San Francisco Bay.
If there’s any claim of confusion among consumers, I feel like the word order should address those concerns. Anyway, we’ll see how this plays out…
Bottom line
Last year, OAK tried to rebrand as San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport. SFO took big issue with this, and a judge sided with SFO, and demanded that OAK cease using that branding. Now the airport is trying to rebrand once again, as Oakland San Francisco Bay International Airport, this time just flipping word order.
If you ask me, that seems like a reasonable rebranding that addresses concerns about potential confusion. For that matter, the name sort of just reflects the reality of the airport’s geography — the airport is in Oakland, and on San Francisco Bay. That’s not to say the airport authority won’t face legal issues, but at least that’s my take…
What do you make of OAK’s latest rebranding attempt?
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