San Francisco Sues Oakland Airport For ‘Hijacking’ Its Name – Who Wins The Bay Area’s Branding War? – View from the Wing

Americans don’t know geography, and can’t find Oakland on a map. So Oakland airport and San Francisco airport are locked in a legal battle over whether the Oakland airport can call itself “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.”

The idea of the name change was to… reduce confusion? Passengers would see Oakland and think “I can fly there to go to San Francisco!” But it could also increase confusion because, wait, which one is the San Francisco airport?

Oakland renamed itself, and San Francisco International Airport claims this is a trademark violation. A judge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California heard the claims on Thursday.

San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport née Oakland International Airport

San Francisco first filed the lawsuit in April, just days after Oakland’s Port Commission approved the name change for its airport. Then in September, San Francisco filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent Oakland from using its new name, citing potential confusion among travelers and irreparable harm to SFO airport’s reputation. (SFO, after all, is a pretty good airport – Oakland is.. Oakland.)

At the preliminary injunction hearing on Thursday, the attorney for San Francisco airport (the real one) argued that the original SFO has exclusive rights to the “San Francisco” name in the airport context – and the addition of “San Francisco Bay” to Oakland’s name creates confusion, leading travelers to book flights to the wrong airport, misdirecting ride-share drivers, and affecting the reputation of San Francisco itself although frankly I’m not sure the city’s reputation can fall much further than it already has. He demanded not just that Oakland not use the name – but also destroy any marketing materials they’ve produced.

Oakland airport’s lawyer responds that the name change simply communicates factual information about their physical proximity to the Bay – and does not imply any affiliation with SFO. The 9th Circuit legal standard, she argued, is customer confusion at point of purchase – and airlines are the airport’s customers. They aren’t confused.

San Francisco International Airport

Moreover, we know there’s not really passenger confusion because San Francisco airport’s traffic hasn’t been harmed by the name change. It’s grown since then. Furthermore, passengers search for flights to Oakland and even San Jose already when looking for travel to Northern California (though if this were universally true there’d be little reason for the change).

The magistrate judge took arguments for a preliminary injunction under advisement. While likelihood of consumer confusion matters, trademark protection doesn’t extend to every possible instance of confusion by a reasonable consumer. I’d point out,

• There are semi-regular stories of people buying tickets to Sydney, Nova Scotia instead of Sydney, Australia.
• DFW airport is called Dallas, not just Love Field! Orlando doesn’t like Melbourne-Orlando airport, but tough going…
• Meanwhile, Oakland airport actually borders the San Francisco Bay while the SFO airport is not in San Francisco proper but rather San Mateo County.

Baltimore’s BWI airport makes clear that it is part of the Washington, DC region – Baltimore Washington International. It used to be BAL for Baltimore and the story of how they changed involves geopolitical intrigue since BWI belonged to Papua New Guinea.

Fresno Yosemite Airport markets itself as a gateway to Yosemite National Park, so that visitors consider it rather than San Francisco or San Jose (which are more likely for many to have non-stop flights). They were unable to get their airport code changed, however. It’s still FAT (‘Fresno Air Terminal’), one of the world’s worst airport codes alongside Sioux City, Iowa; Fukuoka, Japan; Kochi, India; and Pensacola, Florida.

And European low cost carriers have long promoted Bratislava as Vienna even though it’s literally in another country!