Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (KOAK) sits on filled land at the edge of San Francisco Bay, seven miles south of downtown Oakland and twelve miles east of San Francisco, and is one of the historic gateways of American aviation. For the simulator pilot it offers a long, ILS-equipped main runway, a set of parallel asphalt strips, and Class C airspace shared with the busy San Francisco Bay Area traffic environment. Its history includes Charles Lindbergh's 1927 dedication flight and Amelia Earhart's final departure in 1937.
KOAK is a large civil airport on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, owned and operated by the Port of Oakland. It sits across the bay from San Francisco International Airport and today serves as an operating base for Southwest Airlines and a hub for FedEx Express, alongside its long-standing role in general and historic aviation. For a sim pilot it is notable both for its rich early aviation history and for the flying challenge of its Class C airspace and multiple runway configuration on bay fill.
The airport lies within Class C airspace, seven miles south of downtown Oakland and about twelve miles east of San Francisco, on land reclaimed from San Francisco Bay. It sits directly across the bay from San Francisco International Airport, and traffic in and out of KOAK is worked by NORCAL Approach and Departure control given the proximity of the two major Bay Area fields.
KOAK has four physical runways. The main runway, 12/30, is 10,507 feet of lit hard-surface pavement equipped with an ILS. Parallel to it are 10R/28L, 6,205 feet of lit hard surface, and 10L/28R, roughly 5,451 to 5,452 feet of lit hard surface with an ILS on the 28R end. A shorter crosswind runway, 15/33, provides 3,377 feet of lit hard surface.
Air traffic is worked by Oakland Tower on 118.3 MHz, with ground handled on 121.75 MHz. Clearance delivery is available, and ATIS broadcasts on 133.775 MHz. Approach and departure control is provided by NORCAL, with Approach on 31.76 MHz and 125.35 MHz and Departure on 120.9 MHz. A separate radio frequency, described as Oakland Radio, operates on 122 MHz, and Unicom is available on 122.95 MHz for general aviation use; CLD is listed on 121.1 MHz. The field is equipped with instrument landing systems on runway 12/30 and on the 28R end of 10L/28R.
As a Class C tower-controlled airport, arriving and departing traffic is sequenced by Oakland Tower in coordination with NORCAL Approach and Departure; pilots should expect to establish two-way communication with approach control before entering the airspace and to follow tower instructions for runway use and pattern entry given the mix of large jet, cargo and general aviation traffic.
Oakland's airport traces back to 1925, when the city began investigating a site for an airfield, with the announcement of the Dole Air Race to Hawaii prompting the purchase of 680 acres in April 1927. A 7,020-foot runway, the longest in the world at the time, was built in just 21 days ahead of the race, and the airport was dedicated by Charles Lindbergh on 17 September 1927. Its unusually long runway made it the departure point for several pioneering flights, including Charles Kingsford Smith's 1928 flight from the United States to Australia and Amelia Earhart's final, ill-fated round-the-world attempt in 1937, from which she intended to return to Oakland. Boeing Air Transport, a forerunner of United Airlines, began scheduled services in December 1927, joined by Trans World Airlines in 1932, and Boeing opened its School of Aeronautics on the field in 1929, training thousands of pilots and mechanics before it became a United Air Lines training centre in 1945. During the Second World War the airport was taken over by the US Armed Forces as Naval Air Station Oakland and used as a Pacific airlift base, with scheduled airline services displaced to San Francisco. After the war Oakland became a major centre for non-scheduled and supplemental carriers, including Transocean Air Lines, World Airways, Trans International Airlines, Universal Airlines and Saturn Airways, and grew into one of the largest aircraft overhaul and maintenance centres in the country. A Jet Age terminal opened in 1962 as part of a major expansion on bay fill that included the 10,000-foot runway 11/29, later redesignated 12/30, and Trans World Airlines flew the airport's first scheduled jet service, a Convair 880, to Chicago in 1963. During the Vietnam War, World Airways carried thousands of military passengers through Oakland en route to Southeast Asia, and an international arrivals facility was built, giving the airport its first international capability; World Airways later opened a large maintenance hangar there in 1973 capable of housing four Boeing 747s.
Oakland's airport remains a significant Bay Area gateway, serving as an operating base for Southwest Airlines and a hub for FedEx Express, alongside domestic passenger services and international flights to destinations including Mexico and El Salvador, plus cargo flights to China and Japan. The airport has undergone repeated official renaming in recent years, most recently settling on Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport following a legal dispute with San Francisco International Airport over the use of the San Francisco name, though its IATA code OAK and its ICAO identifier KOAK are unchanged.