Oakland’s airport took a mere five months to build. Now adding 16 gates could take decades, if it’s ever able to happen.
Today Southwest Airlines controls the vast majority of traffic at the airport that was dedicated by Charles Lindbergh in 1927 and was the site of Amelia Earhart’s final trip departure. It hasn’t seen investment in fifteen years. And locals are going to use all of the levers of process to make sure it doesn’t see any, any time soon.