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One of three international airports in the San Francisco Bay Area, airlines serving Oakland International provide service to numerous destinations in the United States, as well as Mexico. Oakland is a focus city--with the airport as a crew base and the 10th busiest-for Southwest Airlines. (SWA) currently has as many as 104 daily flights on peak-travel days of the week. Alaska Airlines (combined with sister-carrier Horizon Air) is a distant-yet-growing 2nd busiest with as many as 11 flights. Delta Air Lines has up to 10 flights daily, JetBlue Airways offers 6 non-stop flights and US Airways offers 5 non-stop flights, each way, to their respective focus cities and hubs. The top five airlines in terms of market share for 2011 are Southwest Airlines (75.35%), Jetblue Airways (6.45%), Alaska Airlines (4.94%), US Airways (2.84%) and Hawaiian Airlines (2.41%). OAK has proven a popular alternative to San Francisco International. In 2008, 11.5 million passengers used the airport. Another convenience of OAK over SFO-in relation to the success of Southwest-is OAK's history of a high, on-time arrival percentage (of total flights inbound), despite many days of rainy and foggy weather for some months in each city. For 2009, OAK had the highest on-time arrival percentage among the 40 busiest North American airports. Oakland International is popular with low cost airlines. Until the economic downturn became worse in 2008, along with fuel prices beginning to soar, OAK was one of the nation's fastest growing airports for much of the decade. A $300 million expansion and renovation project was completed in spring 2008. The project included the addition of five gates to Terminal 2; enhanced food, beverage and retail concessions; a new baggage claim area; expanded areas for ticketing and security screening; and significant improvements to the roadways, curbsides and parking lots. Terminal 1 is currently undergoing a $200 million upgrade. This building will be renovated and seismically retrofitted over the next few years. Future improvements include larger restrooms; replacing concourse carpeting with terrazzo floors; new airline ticketing and check-in areas; food, beverage and retail concession improvements; and improved universal access and overall comfort and convenience enhancements. In addition to airline operations, Oakland International is a large general aviation airport. Airline operations use the South Field (runway 11/29), while general aviation uses the North Field (runways 9R/27L, 9L/27R, and 15/33). In 2008, OAK had 269,631 aircraft movements (take-offs or landings), and was the 35th busiest among the major North American airports. |