Once upon a time, international travel to the San Francisco Bay Area meant flying into and out of San Francisco International Airport (SFO), where numerous domestic and international carriers operate major hubs.
Alternatives were limited. With the exception of a few Mexico- and Canada-bound flights, international travel was not really an option from the Bay Area's other airports at San Jose and Oakland.
But just as the City of Oakland, which recently placed on Forbes list of the "Coolest Cities in America," has been slowly drawing visitors on its own merits, instead of as a big city alternative to San Francisco, so too has the East Bay city's airport been welcoming a growing number of travelers.
Oakland International Airport's (OAK) newest flight took off for Rome via Norwegian Air, last Thursday. The flight, the Bay Area's first non-stop service to Rome since 2001. takes 12 hours and 35 minutes and will operate twice weekly.
"We offer more European routes out of the Bay Area than any other airline and we are excited to be the only airline with nonstop service to Rome, one of the world's greatest tourist destinations," said Thomas Ramdahl, Norwegian's Chief Commercial Officer. "We are also pleased to add Paris in just a couple of months."
Rome is the sixth nonstop route for Norwegian at OAK. The airline's other destinations include Barcelona, Copenhagen, London-Gatwick, Oslo and Stockholm. In April, it will begin service to Paris.
Since it first began flying from Oakland in 2014, Norwegian has been among the catalysts driving an exponential thirst for international flights from the East Bay.
In 2017, Oakland International Airport (OAK) welcomed more than 13 million passengers, an increase of more than 8 percent over the previous year, and an all-time record for the facility.
But it is international traffic that is the real star at the airport, which has seen international passenger traffic more than double in just two years.
"It is very exciting to see OAK continue to expand its reach and prove its viability as a gateway linking the San Francisco Bay Area to destinations across the globe," said Bryant L. Francis, Director of Aviation for the Port of Oakland. "We are finding more ways in which to partner with our stakeholders to raise OAK's profile, and our customers are responding by flying the East Bay Way."
While Norwegian began new service to Copenhagen and Barcelona from Oakland last year, other airlines are also contributing to the surge in international traffic. Among them, new flights to Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos on Southwest, London-Gatwick on British Airways and Barcelona on Level.
In total, OAK now serves more than 14 international destinations, including London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Terceira, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Morelia and Leon.
The airport is responding to the growth with an aggressive facility expansion, including a $45 renovation and expansion of its International Arrivals Building (IAB), which debuted last December and added 13,000 square feet of new space to the existing International Arrivals Building (IAB), which was first built in 1972.
With the previous facility, OAK could process just one widebody aircraft (300 passengers) at a time. The expanded building doubles that capacity to two widebody aircraft or more than 600 passengers per hour.
Also completed last year, the airport resurfaced its principle runway, a $67 million undertaking which was completed while the airport maintained full operations.
OAK has also announced that it will become an official Innovation Task Force Site for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in 2018. The trial program, which will commence in Terminal 2 in partnership with Southwest Airlines, should roll out by the middle of summer.
The program will allow TSA to test out new technologies at the airport's security checkpoint, such as Automated Bin Return, Remote Monitoring and Computerized Tomography (CT) technology for identifying explosives in carry-on luggage.
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