Oakland Airport's name change – juggling geography and personalities: part one

What’s in a name?

Several CAPA - Centre for Aviation reports have considered that question when authorities have opted to change the name of an airport. The names of politicians, entertainers, sportspeople and religious personalities tend to prevail. Occasionally the name of one politician will change in favour of another, as dictated by the social zeitgeist – as happened a couple of years ago at Las Vegas.

There may well be more of those to come.

The dilemma facing Oakland International Airport (OAK) in Northern California, one of three serving the (San Francisco) Bay Area, is how to tell the world it is representing a larger, better known area while not diminishing itself by removing Oakland from its title.

Oakland is a hard city with above normal levels of crime (even for present-day America), but it has a proud history. It could be argued that the authorities might focus on regaining lost domestic and international services, rather than concern themselves with renaming the facility, but such ‘cosmetic’ exercises are held to be an important part of modern marketing theory.

This is part one of a two-part report.