Talk:Oakland International Airport

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Contents

[edit] "Metropolitan Oakland International Airport"

The proper name of KOAK is "Metropolitan Oakland International Airport".

I would propose we move this page to "Metropolitan Oakland International Airport" and redirect "Oakland International Airport" there (currently the opposite is true). ChadScott 05:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The airport's official web site does not use "Metropolitan" in any context. It is referred to as Oakland International Airport in the page title, press releases, and "Contact Us". The same is true for the airport's owner/operator, the Port of Oakland. What is the source of your assertion? MCB 05:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The FAA calls it "Metropolitan Oakland International Airport", all instrument approaches into the field are titled "Metropolitan Oakland International Airport", and the airport diagram is titled "Metropolitan Oakland International Airport." I'm not sure which name we prefer using: the proper marketing name from the operator or the proper registered name with the FAA. Is there any precedent? ChadScott 05:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Wikipedia naming conventions prefer using the "what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize" and that "names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists." So I'd say it should probably stay as is. MCB 05:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I just looked at several other airport pages (okay, three) and there seems to be a precedent to use the FAA name and have a redirection for various other common names. An example of this is Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which is the proper FAA name, but is more commonly referred to as Reagan National or Ronald Reagan National Airport, both of which redirect to the proper name. I guess it's just splitting hairs, but as a pilot I'm always hearing/reading "Metropolitan Oakland International Airport" (even the ATIS says this, typically). As I write this, my wife chimes in with: "I think the new welcome signs out front even say this." ChadScott 05:45, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Don't want to beat this dead horse too much longer, but I just called up KOAK ATIS (510-635-5850) and it began, "Oakland International Airport information Echo, 1453 Zulu..." And all the new signage I'm aware of uses the new "OaklandInternational" (no space, "Airport" omitted) logo that's on the web site. But really, for Wikipedia purposes I think we should stick with what's used by the public, airlines, the airport, etc., rather than what's used by the FAA and (the comparatively small number of) pilots. MCB 15:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The ATIS is literally typed in by a controller every hour, so it varies based upon who's typing (it has even said "Oakland Raider Nation International Airport"). The ASOS says "Metropolitan Oakland International Airport" as I recall, at the start of each reading. I can't comment on the signs as I've only seen them once (I'm usually going in the back way). Anyway, I'll leave the horse alone for now, even though it's backwards to have the article title be the "common" name and have an "also known as" the proper name in there. ChadScott 19:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What are "aircraft movements"?

The article's third paragraph currently contains this sentence: In 2004, OAK had 339,163 aircraft movements, and was the 30th busiest airport in the United States. What is meant by "aircraft movements"? Does that mean take-offs and landings, or does it include other types of "movements"? Perhaps someone with subject matter knowledge could make the sentence clearer. - Walkiped 04:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

An "aircraft movement" is defined as a takeoff or landing. This means a transient aircraft would count as two "movements": one for the arrival and one for the subsequent takeoff at a later time. -- ChadScott 16:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I've edited the article accordingly. - Walkiped 00:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aircraft landed "heavy" without dumping fuel

Please stop adding this and derivatives of this to the incidents section. First, the fuel load between Sacramento and San Diego would not require fuel dumping on any aircraft and, second, the 737 has no fuel dumping capability. Third, the aircraft did not land heavy as it was already under maximum landing weight. -- ChadScott 18:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] JetBlue "heavy" presence

Before we get into a reverting war here, I just wanted to justify my removal of JetBlue as a "heavy user" of the airport with some statistics.

Presuming JetBlue has 15 scheduled flights daily (unverified), it's less than 10% of the total (the FAA estimates 439 commercial movements daily, 15 flights at two movements each is 30, or 7%). Southwest, on the other hand, has at least 27% (60 flights daily [I got tired of counting... it looks more like 100 - 150], equaling 120 movements, or 27%).

The only heavy volume user of the commercial airfield is Southwest.

ChadScott 02:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

With new flights that are just starting Southwest has 147 daily flights. You can see this on the news section of the airports website. JetBlue has only 10% of what Southwest has. Tuyvan 15:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the reference. I started by counting the flights on SWA's schedule until I realized I was counting several twice. Then I went through scheduled SWA departures for OAK and got to 60 and quit. :) -- ChadScott 02:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Airlines and destinations

According to section 1.3 (5) the WP:Airports format (Airlines and destinations), the term "destinations" includes not only "non-stop" flights, but also service that continues to another city under the same flight number and without change of aircraft. (5. List non-stop and direct flights only. That means the flight number and the aircraft, starts at this airport and continues to one or more airports. Avoid using the description 'via' since that is more correctly listed as another destination. If passengers can not disembark at a stop on a direct flight, then do not list it as a destination or as 'via'. Direct flights are not always non-stop flights. ...") Under these criteria, "Philadelphia" thus clearly qualifies as a SWA "destination" from Oakland as the airline currently operates twice daily such "direct" service between the two cities in both directions with only a single stop at Chicago-Midway from which each flight continues on to Philadelphia or Oakland with "no change in plane or flight number". (Under these criteria some other SWA cities such as Baltimore/Washington and Manchester, etc also quaiify as destinations.) The carrier has also operated this route as a non-stop service (and may very well may again in the future) on flights which I have personally flown four times, and the company also still lists Philadelphia as a non-stop destination from Oakland on the internet on its "City Fact Sheet" for the Oakland Airport" (Centpacrr (talk) 10:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)).

That policy also states in the same paragraph "However, avoid listing direct flights that contain a stop at a domestic hub, as virtually all of these are simply flights from one "spoke city" to a hub, with the plane continuing from the hub to a second spoke city." Since MDW is an SWA hub, that would apply to these destinations. V-train (talk) 15:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The problem with listing "direct" flights is two-fold: One, they artificially inflate an airline's presence at a given base; especially the case with Southwest. You can probably find "direct" flights from OAK to basically every city in the WN system. The destination list would become useless. Two, these direct flights often change with the whims of schedulers; with every timetable change, we'd have to go through the schedules for every city to figure out where the flights continued on to. It's unworkable.
The exception for international direct flights was inserted because of a problem with certain flights, such as the Kangaroo Route services to Australia, that are very traditionally one-stop direct flights because the planes literally don't have the range to make it LHR-SYD without stopping.
I just checked OAG, and the WN fact sheet is out of date. There are no non-stop OAK-PHL or OAK-BWI flights currently loaded. They might be operating seasonally - if they do pop back up in the schedules come summer, we can reinsert them with the [seasonal] tag. FCYTravis (talk) 18:22, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
SWA does not promote its these four flights as "hub and spoke" trips, but as direct service between the two cities which currently happen to include a stop in Chicago. During that brief stop (about 30 minutes) the many through passengers may remain on the aircraft and retain their seats. The trips operate with one aircraft, one flight number, and begin and terminate in the principal cities of Philadelphia and Oakland with through passengers needing to check in for the trip just once with a single boarding pass issued for the originating city of their trip. In such a case, the fact the enroute stop also happens to be a "Hub" would be all but irrelevant to through passengers. In addition SWA has operated this route as a non-stop trip (which I haver personally taken four times) and could well do so again. (Centpacrr (talk) 18:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC))
Yes, they have operated it non-stop in the past. If they do so again, it'll be listed as a non-stop destination again - perhaps with the [seasonal] tagline to indicate that they're only operating it during certain parts of the year.
If we listed every city that WN serves via one-stop flights from a given station, you might as well just list every WN city at every WN station. FCYTravis (talk) 19:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Suggestion (probably should make this at WP:Airport): What about "downgrading" the disqualifying factor for SWA from "hubs" to "focus cities"? This would probably eliminate a lot of SWA's cities, and preserve some genuine "stops". HkCaGu (talk) 19:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
What's a WN "focus city?" There is no objective criteria for that, because Southwest does not distinguish between its stations in any official manner. The airline does not have an official set of "hubs" and "focus cities." FCYTravis (talk) 19:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
SWA doesn't refer to these cities as "Hubs" anyways. The airline has said it "does not operate hubs." And regards to that link, WN has not update their website because if you go on the TUS page, the recent addition of nonstop service to OAK has not been added to the destinations, so they have not updated the OAK page for the recent discontinuation of service to PHL. Sox23 22:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)