Oakland airport’s controversial name change blocked by judge

The name “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport” is off-limits to Oakland’s airport — at least for now.

On Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson blocked the Port of Oakland from using the name it recently adopted for the Bay Area airport that was formerly called Metropolitan Oakland International Airport.

The judge granted the City of San Francisco’s motion for a preliminary injunction with respect to the Port of Oakland while the legal battle plays out.

Referring to the trademarked name, or “Mark,” for the city’s primary airport — San Francisco International Airport — the court order stated that “San Francisco is likely to prevail on its claim that the new name of the Oakland airport uses San Francisco’s Mark in a way that falsely implies affiliation, connection and association.”

Paro, Bhutan: an Airbus A319 lands at Paro International Airport, the only international airport in Bhutan, located in a deep valley on the bank of the river Paro Chhu, with surrounding peaks as high as 5,500m (18,000 ft), it is considered one of the world’s most challenging airports, flights operate only in visual meteorological conditions (VMC), an aviation flight category in which visual flight rules (VFR) flight is permitted. The airport has a single 2,265 m (7,431 ft) asphalt runway.

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In May, Oakland’s airport changed its name to include “San Francisco Bay,” despite a trademark lawsuit from neighboring San Francisco.

At the time, the Port of Oakland said its aim with the new name was to increase traffic “by boosting travelers’ geographic awareness of the airport’s location on the San Francisco Bay.”

It called the renaming an important part of “broader efforts to strengthen and grow the airport as one of Oakland’s important economic engines.”

The airport kept its three-letter code, OAK.

The City of San Francisco filed a lawsuit on April 18 following the approval by Oakland’s Board of Port Commissioners to change the airport’s name. The federal suit alleged that Oakland planned to “intentionally and knowingly capitalize off of confusion.”

In May, a news release from the City Attorney of San Francisco said the name change would “very likely cause widespread confusion, mishaps, and economic loss for travelers, to the detriment of both airports and the Bay Area overall.”

Tuesday’s court order said San Francisco would likely prevail in claims related to “affiliation, connection or association confusion.” But it has not yet shown that travelers are likely to buy tickets to the wrong airport.

CNN’s Taylor Romine and Chimaine Pouteau contributed to this report.