Apparently the outcry over this, and comparisons to neighboring San Francisco were too much.

Or it may just be that this was a mistake, and they want to accept responsibility for it.

Whatever the reason, Oakland, which in my opinion badly treated some troops flying through last week, has issued an apology.  Via Michelle Malkin:

Oakland airport tells troops ’sorry’

Oakland International Airport officials apologized for prohibiting a planeload of U.S. troops, just back from Iraq, from entering the passenger terminal during a layover Thursday, prompting conservative pundits and bloggers to hold up the incident as an example of the Left Coast dishonoring soldiers.

“We apologize, I apologize to any members of the military that were on this flight and may have experienced some discomfort or perception of disrespect,” said Omar Benjamin, executive director of the Port of Oakland, which operates the airport.

There was no disrespect intended when North American Airlines Flight 1777 was directed to wait two hours at a remote part of the airport, Benjamin said. The plane was onits way from Iraq to Hawaii.

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, airport officials said they did not realize that the soldiers had been screened during previous stopovers in Kuwait and New York. They also were unaware that some of the troops, reportedly Marines, had meant to see locals during their two-hour layover, said Deborah Ale-Flint, the airport’s assistant director of aviation.

Hilltop Aviation, which was contracted to provide ground services for North American Airlines Flight 1777, had said there were weapons aboard the flight, the passengers had not been screened, and did not tell the airport “that some of the service men and women onboard anticipated meeting family and friends,” Ale-Flint said.

“If this information had been shared in advance,” she said, “there would have been a different outcome.”

More from SFChron:

“There was no disrespect that was intended,” said Omar Benjamin, executive director of the Port of Oakland, which runs the airport. “There was confusion. There were mistakes that were made.”

…The airport said the Marines were not screened by Transportation Security Administration agents after they arrived in New York on a flight from Kuwait. That factored into the decision to exclude them from the passenger terminal, officials said. But the TSA said the Marines had been screened by U.S. Customs.

“At no time were servicemen and women prohibited from entering the sterile area of Oakland International Airport by TSA personnel or regulations,” the federal agency said.

I truly thank them for ending the buck passing and just admitting it was a mistake and they screwed up.

It removes the stink of anti war activism and accepts that human error was the culprit.

And since in my earlier post I said this:

This amounts to pure malicious harassment, in my opinion.

I hearby apologize to Oakland and retract that statement.

San Francisco should take note.  

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