Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport — Oakland, United States

Aviation history runs deep at Oakland International Airport, coded OAK, from the 1928 departure of the Southern Cross on the first transpacific flight to Australia to Amelia Earhart's final takeoff in 1937, when she departed Oakland at the start of the round-the-world attempt that ended with her disappearance over the Pacific. Sitting barely above sea level on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, the airport splits its operations between a commercial South Field, home to Southwest Airlines' largest Bay Area base, and a separate general aviation North Field with shorter runways handling smaller aircraft. Long positioned as the budget-friendly alternative to San Francisco International across the bay, Oakland has also built substantial cargo operations, anchored by a major FedEx hub that keeps its runways busy overnight. The Port of Oakland operates both the airport and the adjacent seaport, tying OAK's fortunes to the broader logistics economy of the East Bay.