Stockton airport pushes for name change
San Joaquin County Supervisors to vote on change next Tuesday
The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors are set to consider whether to change the name of the Stockton Metropolitan Airport to the San Francisco Stockton Regional Airport during its meeting Tuesday.
In September, the County Aviation Advisory Committee unanimously approved changing the name.
According to Airport Director Harry Mavrogenes, the name change will help to attract business, increase awareness of location and promote regionalism.
“It’s a marketing issue. As we look at what’s going on in the airport industry, what we notice is that a lot of smaller airports have adopted their name recognition to a nearby city,” said Mavrogenes, who added that marketing the airport can be challenging because many travelers don’t know where Stockton is located.
“Adding the name San Francisco and identifying us as a regional airport will help tremendously in improving our visibility in marketing and people will instantly recognize where we are,” he said.
Mavrogenes said he doesn’t believe the name change would confuse people.
San Francisco is about 80 miles from Stockton and the drive between the two cities takes about 90 minutes.
“We are part of the San Francisco standard metropolitan municipal area according to the census bureau. A quarter of our labor force works in the Bay Area, so we are part of that region,” he said. “There is no attempt to hoodwink anybody. They’ll know. If there is a flight available, if you live in Livermore, it’s a lot easier to get to Stockton Airport than it is to go to Oakland or San Francisco from a traffic standpoint and timing. It’s cheaper.”
Mavrogenes said the airport is working with some airports in China to build long-term relationships and San Francisco is more widely known than Stockton.
“When you say San Francisco they know exactly where you are,” he said. “If you say Stockton to an international traveler, they don’t quite know where we are. But we’re keeping the name Stockton because it has a long story and identity here being a military base for many years and being present here as the major airport in the Central Valley”
The city of Stockton dedicated the airport as Stockton Municipal Airport in 1927.
The airport began as a private ranch providing a location for aerial barnstorming operations in the 1920s and it was used as an Army training facility during World War II. The county assumed responsibility for it and began commercial service, including passenger service, after the war ended.
Supervisor Chuck Winn said he has concerns about the proposed name change.
“I understand it,” he said. “The name change has been discussed for several years long before I came on the board. I don’t disagree that maybe we ought to at some time look for something that’s a little bit more regional, especially when we, in the past, had discussion with Stanislaus County. Certainly one of the areas we’ve been focusing on is north of San Joaquin County (Sacramento County).”
Winn said the bottom line is that San Francisco has no direct relationship with the airport even if the name change would garner more attention for the airport.
Winn said he feels there should be some discussion with the county’s neighbors to the north and south before making a decision, adding that in the future the airport plans to have international service, so maybe those changes could be made at one time instead of incrementally.
In the past year, the number of passengers going through Stockton Metropolitan Airport have increased from 80,000 to 100,000, Mavrogenes said. In addition to flights to Las Vegas and Phoenix, the airport has added flights to San Diego. The airport is also trying to secure other airlines for service to Los Angeles International Airport.
“I think one of our major goals here is to bring our residents to a hub airport where they can go anywhere in the world,” Mavrogenes said.
The Board of Supervisors meeting will be held on Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the board chambers of the county administrative offices in Stockton.