Does an airport by any other name smell as sweet, or deliver you where you want to be? San Francisco thinks not, and says that passengers are getting confused between its very own San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and nearby Oakland’s newly-minted “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.” As a result, the city has filed an injunction asking a judge to stop the “town” of Oakland’s hub using its name.
Did Oakland steal San Francisco’s name?
The Port of Oakland renamed its “Metropolitan Oakland International Airport” back in April 2024, and now calls itself San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport. But the city of San Francisco has objected, with its attorney David Chiu pointing out that SFO began operating in 1927, and has nearly always been known as “San Francisco Airport” or “San Francisco International Airport”, with an official use recorded in 1954.
What’s more, Chiu notes the city has owned the US federal trademark registrations for the marks “San Francisco International Airport” since 2012, and the assigned airport code “SFO” together with SFO’s logo since 2007. But, he says, the nearby Oakland hub using the words “San Francisco Bay” in its name is not only violating a trademark, but causing “actual confusion in the marketplace”, with as many 20% of respondents confused over the two airport names.
Is San Francisco trying to “erase” Oakland?
Oakland is not taking the claims lying down. For its part, it has argued verbally and in a counterclaim made in May that in fact no one owns the name “San Francisco Bay Area”. The Port’s attorney Mary Richardson has gone as far as issuing a statement accusing the city of “tactics rooted in publicity and anti-competitive bullying rather than on legal merits.” The city, she says, has even “sought to manufacture confusion under the cloak of legal filings and try to erase OAK from the map.”
A hearing presided over by Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson has now been set for 24 October 2024 in San Francisco, but in the meantime it seems the legal furore is providing good cover and material for extra publicity by at least one of the airports in the fray.
“The convenience and ease of traveling through OAK won’t change with our name,” Oakland’s Interim Director of Aviation Craig Simon said in May. “OAK is the closest major airport to 58% of the Bay Area population. This designation will let the world know who we serve.”
