San Francisco Airport

This entry was posted in Airports Panama Canal Cruise 2023 and tagged Airport Airports Panama Cruise 2023 SFO on by (updated on )

You have some options when you fly to the Bay Area. You have Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose.     

San Francisco

Here are some facts about the airport:

  • Owner/Operator:
    • City and County of San Francisco
  • Location
    • San Mateo County
  • Opened
    • May 7, 1927
  • Hub for
    • , Alaska Airlines
    •  United Airlines
  • Total Passengers
    • 42,281,641
  • Aircraft Operations
    • 355,006
  • Total Cargo (tons)
    • 491,192

Located

History

The airport was used as a Coast Guard and Army Air Corps training and staging base during WWII.

First international operations Australian National Airways.  There is much information about the flights and whenever or wherever they fly.

Domestic flying had it’s first non-stop to the U.S. East Coast were United Douglas DC-7s in 1954.

In 1989, an Earthquake 1989 stopped the World Series and shut down the airport. However,  it opened up the next day after the minor damage to the runways was repaired.

That sparked a new push to get a new airport. A $2.5 billion international Terminal Complex opened in 2000. The building of the new complex bypasses the environmental impact. You know, getting around the rules to get it built.

The airport has had issues with delays due to poor weather, and that prompted Southwest to move over to Oakland and San Jose. They did return in 2007.

BART/Airtain

Stands for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. The airport section opened in 2003. They have something called AirTrain people mover, which moves people from

  • Car Rental
  • In Between terminals
  • Terminals
  • Parking garage

This is an automatically run system that requires a human driver. It is quite the thing.

Developments

Virgin America used SFO as the base of operations for its start-up airline. SFO made some changes and improvements to the Airbus A380, which visited SFO on Oct. 4, 2027. It won the best international airport award in 2008.

For a $102 Million price tag, they got a new control tower, which opened in 2016.

Terminals

The terminals are designed in a ring formation. Like this

The airport has four terminals and they are 1,2,3, and of course, the international terminal.

It consists of 115 gates that are alphabetically and go counterclockwise.

Thoughts

This is a pretty cool airport with great potential, and the Airtrain helps relocate passengers to other places. Other airports are doing the same thing.

San Francisco International Airport. (2023, December 10). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_International_Airport

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_International_Airport>