Oakland Airport expansion reflects the Bay Area’s changing demographics

When the Oakland International Airport announced plans for a major expansion last week, the potentially profound implications for the Bay Area may not have been obvious — it’s long operated in the shadow of major airline hubs in San Francisco and San Jose.

But in fact, the often-overlooked airport may finally be catching up to the major role that aviation has played in the East Bay — and that the East Bay has played in aviation.

Last Wednesday, Oakland Airport officials published a draft environmental report outlining their plans for terminal modernization and development, an early step in a push to reimagine an airport that hasn’t seen significant upgrades in 40 years. The plan, which is currently open to public comment, outlines dramatic changes for the airport — including the construction of a new 830,000-square-foot terminal building, upgrades to existing facilities, and the addition of 16 gates to “meet increasing air travel demand.”

It’s an effort to tap into what many see as the airport’s potential to once again become a major player in the Bay Area.

The Oakland Airport has better weather and an easier approach for pilots than SFO. It is already a shipping hub, with major operations conducted by FedEx and UPS on site. Perhaps most importantly, it is well situated for the flight needs of a shifting Bay Area population.

“We are the closest airport to most of the 7.7 million people that live in the San Francisco Bay Area,” said John Albrecht, a manager of aviation marketing and communications with the Port of Oakland. “There’s tremendous opportunity for growth and development.”

For travelers coming from rapidly growing suburbs like Dublin, Walnut Creek and Livermore, a modernized airport with more space, more non-stop flights and more international flights would allow them to avoid traversing both the Caldecott Tunnel and the Bay Bridge on their way to SFO.

“That geographic advantage is something that Oakland can legitimately leverage,”  said John Goodwin, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a public agency responsible for transportation planning in the Bay Area,

To understand the East Bay’s future potential for aviation, it’s important to understand aviation’s history here — one that stretches back almost a century to the morning of August 16, 1927, when eight planes lined up at the Oakland airfield to attempt the first transpacific flights from California to Hawaii.

They were contestants in a competition put on by wealthy businessman and pineapple magnate Sanford Dole, with a cash prize worth nearly half a million in today’s dollars going to the fastest pilot to make the flight. Spectators lined the dirt runway at the Oakland Airport, cars parked behind them in tidy rows.

Ultimately, the race turned deadly. Three of the planes immediately crashed or were forced to abort. Three more were lost at sea. Of the original contestants, only two made it to Honolulu.

But that inauspicious beginning would nonetheless prove to be the start of a rich legacy of aviation innovation in the East Bay. The Oakland Airport was the first in the region, the first in the country to open an airport hotel, a key base for military operations during World War II, and the departure point for numerous attempts at setting long-distance flight records — including Amelia Earhart’s ill-fated journey around the world.

And yet today, even with that storied history, few view the East Bay as an aviation hotspot.

“You probably have to go back to before World War II where you might identify Oakland as the dominant passenger airport,” said Goodwin.

According to Joan Zatopek, aviation planning and development manager for the Port of Oakland, that’s because the airport has not kept up with the needs of modern-day passengers, air traffic technology, or the highest seismic standards of the 21st century. Due to a lack of space in the airport, one airline had people queuing up outside this summer.

“We have facilities in Terminal 1 that were opened in 1962,” said Zatopek. “Those are clearly outdated.”

For Hayward’s Quincy Carr, it’s a matter of pride. A Black pilot in a field that is almost 90% White, Carr was already a trailblazer in aviation before a 2006 shooting left him unable to use his legs.

Now wheelchair-bound, he is a flight instructor for a local, volunteer-run flight school called East Bay Aviators, and his goal is to make aviation accessible to locals from all backgrounds.

To him, flight is a chance for people to find themselves, find joy and find freedom.

“It’s science, it’s adventure, it’s art, it’s nature and it’s confidence,” Carr said.

Beyond Oakland Airport’s expansion, it may be groups like Carr’s that spark a rebirth of aviation culture in the East Bay. The foundation is still there — the Oakland Aviation Museum offers a peek into its past, while the Hayward Air Rally is a vision of the new innovators.