OAK — Blog — Healy Chen

That will do it!

Word on the street is OAK - Oakland’s airport - is renaming once again. After the failed attempt to lure unsuspecting travelers to think it is SFO - San Francisco’s airport, OAK is now named Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.

People will absolutely do everything but fix the reputation of Oakland.

There’s a reason we avoid flying into and out of OAK. The city’s high crime reputation is not worth the risk of whatever savings we get on the plane ticket. Now that Southwest - of which OAK is a hub - is just like any other airline, there’s absolutely no reason to choose Oakland.

Heck, why stop at changing the name of the airport? Rename Oakland to something else so that tourists would mistake it for a place that’s actually safe.

My friend was recently in Oakland for a concert, and his car got broken into. Coincidental as it may be, the town can’t escape its reputation when it gets constantly reinforced. Instead of rearranging the deck chairs, it needs to patch the gaping hole left by the iceberg.

If it isn’t for tourists, at least do it for people who actually live there. Oakland residents deserve a community free of quality-of-life harms.

Late night airport run

Late last Wednesday (or very early Thursday, now that I think about it) I had to pick up my friend from the airport. In Oakland. A roundtrip of well over an hour. As an avid early sleeper, being out that late in the night is a scarce occurrence. And with the roads seemingly as crazy and dangerous as ever, there were some trepidations in performing this good deed. The freaks come out at night!

Good thing that I absolutely love to drive my BMW M2 Competition. Truly a fun and spunky little coupe. I’ve not driven it much at all lately due to high gas prices, so each opportunity is worth savoring. The other good news is that there’s actually not that many cars on the highways during those night hours. Cruising at 80 miles an hour was easy and comfortable. Even the giant semi trucks were going way above their supposed 55 MPH speed limit.

Like most airpots (I presume), Oakland International has a waiting lot just outside of the terminals. For 30 minutes you can park for free and wait for your love ones to be done with baggage claim. Unfortunately for me it took more than 30 minutes because of a delay in baggage transport. I have to assume it’s because there just aren’t that many workers at an airport pass twelve o’clock in the morning.

Much easier to pick someone up flying into SFO: I can leave my house right when the plane lands. Usually that will match up perfectly to them walking out of the terminal. But with high ticket prices these days, it’s well worth the savings to fly into Oakland if the option is there. Just make sure you have a friend who is willing to come pick you up in the dead of night!