Oakland Airport Renamed Again in Ongoing Legal Dispute With San Francisco | KQED

The Port’s board will consider the new name at its meeting on July 10. Last April, the body officially approved the change to “Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport,” which officials said aimed to raise visitors’ geographic awareness of the airport.

It was swiftly slapped with a lawsuit from the city of San Francisco, which argued that the new name infringed on the trademark for San Francisco International (SFO) Airport, which it owns. City Attorney David Chiu said the change confused travellers and, in some cases, led them to the wrong airport.

“We believe that Oakland intentionally designed their new rename to divert those who were unfamiliar with Bay Area geography, and also is trying to mislead the public in suggesting that Oakland might have a business relationship with SFO, which it does not,” Chiu told KQED at the time.

Simon pushed back on the assertion, saying the decision wasn’t intended to stoke confusion, but to improve marketing for the airport.

“Really, we were not seeing a significant amount of confusion happening whatsoever,” he said. “The intent of this is to really get our airline partners to put more operations and more flights into Oakland and get us the ability to have more flights that stick going towards the East Coast.”