Max Harrison-Caldwell, reporting for The San Francisco Standard:
In 2024, the port — which manages the Oakland airport — changed
the name from Oakland International Airport to San Francisco Bay
Oakland International Airport, hoping to entice travelers by
emphasizing the hub’s proximity to SF. At the time, the number of
people flying into Oakland was declining after a brief
post-pandemic rebound, and the airport was losing routes.The effort largely failed, while having the secondary
impact of annoying San Francisco leaders, who swiftly sued,
arguing that the name would confuse travelers. In 2025,
the port swapped the two cities within the name to
produce “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.”San Francisco didn’t like that either, but the parties entered
mediation in December and have now settled. The new name is fine,
as long as “Oakland” always appears before “San Francisco” in all
materials and the airport does not add the letters SF to its
code, OAK.
The Standard ran this under the cheeky headline “Little-Known Bay Area City Will Keep San Francisco in Its Airport’s Name”, which is a little funny, but I don’t see the need to punch down like this. Nobody calls the city “San Francisco” anyway. Everyone just calls it “San Fran” or “Frisco”, either of which names are acceptable.
