Oakland Airport Steps Up To The Plate

<B> Oakland Airport Steps Up To The Plate</B>

By Judy Jacobs

With an expansion project that will make it more accessible than ever before, and the lowest airfares of any of the area's three major cities, Oakland International Airport is determined to become the gateway of choice for more and more business travelers to the San Francisco Bay Area.

For those doing business with companies in the East or North Bay counties, Oakland is already a more convenient place to fly. Oakland can provide easier access even to travelers headed for downtown San Francisco, depending on the airline they use and their point of origin. The expansion of Oakland International Airport not only will allow more flights to come into Oakland but will create a direct link with Bay Area Rapid Transit System, which will connect the airport to downtown San Francisco.

Work on the $750 million expansion is expected to begin late this year or in early 2000 and take between five and seven years to complete. The project will include 12 new aircraft gates and a six-story garage, which will consolidate all rental car facilities, as well as contain parking spaces for 6,000 cars. It also will include a new six-lane highway connecting the airport to I-880 and a new people mover type transit system connecting it to Coliseum Station, the nearest station on the BART rail line.

The passenger terminal part of the project will connect the existing two passenger terminals by building a shell over them. Although Oakland International will undergo a major transformation, it will remain fully operational during construction. When complete, it will be able to process approximately 13.8 million passengers per year, a 42 percent increase over its 1996 volume of 9.7 million passengers.

Meanwhile, traffic at Oakland International already is beginning to grow. "Last year, 1998, was the first growth year since 1995," said George Turner, the airport's manager of aviation marketing. "1995 was the year that United moved its Shuttle operation to San Francisco and we lost a lot of flights, but we're slowly growing." In 1998, passenger traffic grew 1 percent over 1997 figures.

Airport and City of Oakland officials are determined to see air traffic to Oakland grow even more rapidly by promoting Oakland as the gateway to the San Francisco Bay Area. "We're talking to travel agents and airline reservation centers in markets where there's nonstop service to Oakland, and where we don't do as well on inbound as outbound traffic. We're going to Seattle, Portland, Denver, Dallas and Chicago. This is a first for an airport to ever do this anywhere. Now that there is no CVB in Oakland, we took up the project," said Turner.

With the expansion of efforts to market Oakland and the expansion of the airport, several carriers are looking at increasing their operations at the East Bay facility. Most notable of these is Southwest Airlines, which already uses Oakland as its main Bay Area hub. "We have been looking at what kind of expansion can take place at Oakland Airport," said Carol Pearson, spokesperson for Southwest. "Now Southwest has eight gates in Terminal Two and three in Terminal One. With the expansion, we plan to add gates but don't know how many yet." In the meantime, Southwest switched its Albuquerque nonstop flights from San Francisco to Oakland last year. It now flies twice daily Oakland-Albuquerque nonstops and thrice daily from Albuquerque to Oakland.

While the expansion of Oakland International will be a major selling point for the airport as it competes against San Francisco and San Jose for flights and passengers, it already has several points in its favor as the gateway to the Bay Area. A study published in Aviation Daily last year stated that Oakland offers not just the lowest fares of the San Francisco Bay Area's three major airports but some of the lowest fares in the nation. The study found that the average one-way fare was $81 for a 500- to 1000-mile trip originating from Oakland. Average fares were 20 percent higher, or $97, at San Francisco International Airport, and $92 at San Jose Airport. The national average was $125 for medium-size hubs, the category in which Oakland was listed, and $140 for larger airports.

Oakland is not only the least expensive airport in the Bay Area, it also consistently boasts the best on-time arrival and departure statistics. In January 1999, 77.7 percent of arrivals and 80.7 percent of departures at Oakland were on time, in contrast to 61 percent of arrivals and 72.5 percent of departures at San Francisco and 72.7 percent of arrivals and 81 percent of departures at San Jose.