George Lucas flies to Oakland the week his $1B museum opens

George Lucas flew from Santa Barbara to Oakland on the evening of May 10, a 54-minute hop in his Gulfstream V that touched down at KOAK just after 11 p.m. local time. The flight follows a pattern of short trips between Southern California and the Bay Area — he had flown from Santa Barbara to San Francisco two days earlier, and from San Francisco to Santa Barbara the day before that.

The same week, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park is set to open its doors on September 22, 2026, per the San Francisco Chronicle. Lucas curated the inaugural exhibitions himself, drawing from his 40,000-piece collection of illustration, comic art, and cinematic artifacts. The museum, long delayed and relocated from San Francisco to Chicago and back, represents a decade-plus effort to house what Lucas calls “the people’s art.”

Lucas’s home base remains the Bay Area, where Skywalker Ranch sits north of San Francisco. The May 10 arrival at Oakland — his usual regional airport — suggests a return to routine after a string of Southern California visits, likely tied to museum planning and his 80th birthday celebration at the ranch earlier this month, as reported by Jedi News.