SFO flight delays surged 60% this spring. Now, United says relief could be in sight.
Things are about to get a lot better at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), United Airlines said Thursday, following a messy few months of flight delays.
Since April, travelers have run into a host of backups when flying into the Bay Area hub, owing to runway construction and new flight restrictions imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Last month, one out of every three flights into San Francisco got to the gate at least 15 minutes late, according to data shared Thursday by aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Over the past three months, the rate of significant flight delays into SFO was up 60% versus the first three months of the year, Cirium data showed.
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Why are flight delays so bad at SFO?
These travel woes had been expected entering the summer travel rush.
The airport's two north-south runways are being currently being repaved, and are scheduled to be out of service until the fall.
On top of that, the FAA in late March issued a safety measure that banned the famous side-by-side landings on SFO's parallel runways, reducing the number of flights that could land in a given hour.
The move has tied up air traffic into the airport, often leaving planes in holding patterns and causing travelers to risk missing connections.
Last month, my Alaska Airlines flight from San Diego International Airport (SAN) had to hold before takeoff because of an FAA-imposed ground delay program at SFO.
United: Relief coming
However, there may be improvements in sight, according to United, which is the dominant No. 1 carrier at SFO.
The airline on Thursday said it's worked "hand-in-hand" with the FAA on a "new approach" that would increase the number of planes that could land each hour at SFO.
"I'm not 100% sure yet that we can get back to 100% where we were, but we should see improvements in landing rates in San Francisco over the next to to three weeks," United chief operating officer Toby Enqvist told analysts.
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The FAA did not immediately respond to TPG's request for comments on the nature of the talks.
But any improvement would certainly be welcome news for flyers.
On Monday, 45% of flights headed to SFO were delayed, FlightAware showed. 40% were delayed on Wednesday.
By Thursday afternoon, the FAA reported ground delays averaging 55 minutes and counting at the airport — this on a day that was expected to rank among the season's busiest for takeoffs and landings across the country.
United CEO Scott Kirby noted the end of runway construction, expected in October, would also help improve operations in San Francisco. The work, he said, has been a "big driver" of the recent delays.
Aviation insight
Even prior to this summer's problems, the FAA had designated SFO as one of the nation's more capacity-constrained airports.
SFO doesn't have strictly-controlled takeoff and landing rules (known as slots) like New York's LaGuardia Airport (LGA), John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) or Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).
But it's one of four other big U.S. hubs where schedules are tightly managed because of congestion.
The other three? All United hubs, too: Chicago's O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).
O'Hare, for its part, has also faced FAA flight restrictions this summer amid construction and a turf war between United and American Airlines. Last week, the agency extended those limitations through October 2027.
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