32andBelow wrote:

I doubt ATC is breaking their dicks to increase the capacity either. Working for free and all.

The capacity I cited previously, with link, is not something ATC can improve upon. It's based on a number of factors, but is the amount that the airport can handle, based on a best-case scenario. 53-knot winds down the shortest runway with windshear in instrument conditions is not a best case.

What goes into the calculation that produces the delay number? Many flights operate at or close to on time (especially long haul, transcons), and many cancel; there aren't many 10 hour delays to counterbalance the on times to get to a 5 hour average. Do they assign a number for the cancellations to factor them into the calculation?

ucdtim17 wrote:

What goes into the calculation that produces the delay number? Many flights operate at or close to on time (especially long haul, transcons), and many cancel; there aren't many 10 hour delays to counterbalance the on times to get to a 5 hour average. Do they assign a number for the cancellations to factor them into the calculation?

Essentially. They reduced the rate of the airport to 28 per hour. So you just have to shuffle around the over capacity into available slots. Major airlines have control of their slots and can move flights around. Smaller operators are just the mercy of ATC to provide them with an open slot. Airlines will move their cancellations to the last hour of the program which usually will see a spike in arrival rate say 36 in this case so they can move up the slots to other flights.

Yesterday’s program wasn’t so much about the ceilings and rain, but the wind speed and direction. When you’re up and down on the 19s (with some heavies departing 10) you’re only landing one runway. You can’t put down much more than 28 airplanes an hour. They also have to build in gaps to allow some departures off of 19L that don’t have performance off of 19R which also factors into the 28 number.

How much would it take to set up SOIA/CSPR approaches on 19L/R to enable parallel approaches in IMC? CSPR has greatly reduced delays in IMC when 28L/R are used for landings.

sincx wrote:

How much would it take to set up SOIA/CSPR approaches on 19L/R to enable parallel approaches in IMC? CSPR has greatly reduced delays in IMC when 28L/R are used for landings.

Only one of the 19 runways has instrument approaches. I think it's 19L, but I could be mistaken. Landing on the 19s is so rare that it probably doesn't justify the cost (in the millions) to add additional equipment to 19R.

sincx wrote:

How much would it take to set up SOIA/CSPR approaches on 19L/R to enable parallel approaches in IMC? CSPR has greatly reduced delays in IMC when 28L/R are used for landings.

This wouldn’t increase the rate if you’re up and down on the 19s.

Stabilator wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

ATC gets paid whether they work the traffic or not. They have no skin in the game. Its easier just to claim "safety" and slow the traffic down.

ATC isn't getting paid right now due to the shutdown. When things open back up there's a chance for backpay.

Interesting chicken and egg situation here. ATC folks have to work because they are considered "essential staff". But, what happens if those folks run out of cash (will happen sooner than later) and can't afford the transportation to get into work? What contingency plans are the Airports+FAA going to take?

LAXintl wrote:

DOT Ranking of Major Airport On-Time Arrival Performance Year-to-date through October 2018

Rank Jan 1 - October 31, 2018 %
1 Honolulu, HI (HNL) 88.32
2 Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) 85.65
3 Atlanta, GA (ATL) 84.07
4 Detroit, MI (DTW) 83.84
5 Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN (MSP) 83.81
6 Portland, OR (PDX) 83.29
7 Houston, TX (IAH) 81.84
8 Denver, CO (DEN) 81.79
9 San Diego, CA (SAN) 81.27
10 Charlotte, NC (CLT) 80.87
11 Las Vegas, NV (LAS) 80.74
12 Los Angeles, CA (LAX) 80.61
13 Washington, DC (IAD) 80.55
14 Miami, FL (MIA) 80.47
15 Baltimore, MD (BWI) 80.28
16 Seattle, WA (SEA) 80.10
17 Phoenix, AZ (PHX) 79.51
18 Chicago, IL (MDW) 79.37
19 Dallas/Fort Worth, TX (DFW) 78.87
20 Tampa, FL (TPA) 78.83
21 Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL) 78.19
22 Orlando, FL (MCO) 77.57
23 Washington, DC (DCA) 77.10
24 Chicago, IL (ORD) 77.00
25 Philadelphia, PA (PHL) 75.52
26 New York, NY (JFK) 75.26
27 San Francisco, CA (SFO) 74.13
28 Boston, MA (BOS) 73.53
29 New York, NY (LGA) 71.89
30 Newark, NJ (EWR) 66.46

Is there a similar report for cancellations?

Delays were terribad but as noted regionals got the first cuts, while priority went to International ops (LH455 FRA was delayed an hour while AF83 to CDG was less than an hour), selfishly I found it neat to witness live takeoffs from the 19s, one of which was the LH 748 which appeared a few times over the week when normally it's either the A380 or A346.

Stabilator wrote:

SteelChair wrote:

ATC gets paid whether they work the traffic or not. They have no skin in the game. Its easier just to claim "safety" and slow the traffic down.

ATC isn't getting paid right now due to the shutdown. When things open back up there's a chance for backpay.

I'm sure if your boss told you "I'm going to withold your next couple of paychecks, but I'll get them back to you eventually" you wouldn't be happy either. Especially in the Bay Area where ATC's pay is barely enough to afford a small closet with a cockroach infestation. I'd wager a lot of ATC in the Bay Area don't have a ton of savings and will certainly feel the missing paychecks when rent comes due.

747megatop wrote:

janders wrote:

Looks what killing the operation again today is that they are using 10/19s instead of 01/28s

Must be killer for UA with international connections. With only single daily flight to most points across the Pacific, they must be stranding lots of people during such days.

SFO is an airport to be avoided at all costs for transiting. It is delay prone. UA much better off moving their hub down to LAX. I think LAX is the least delay prone major airport in the country perhaps. SFO is definitely a nightmare of an airport for an airline to run a hub out of.

SFO is one of the best airports IMO to fly out of. Delays are minimal and only bad a few weeks out of the year. It's like saying DL or AA should move their JFK ops to IAD or DCA....not much different.

LAX has their own issues to deal with. They are extremely congested when it comes to gate space and flights will sometimes have to wait for the gate area to clear since its a one way rd for most gates.

What do they do when they takeoff on 19R, which I believe is extremely rare. 19L takeoffs make a left turn and head south over Burlingame. What about 19R takeoffs?

When I lived in Millbrae as a young child, 1R and 1L approaches were straight in over the hill and houses, not the curved approaches they do now. That's over a 3 degree approach to keep 1000 feet above the Mills Estate neighborhood. It was pretty wild.

As you'd expect, 19R departures turn left same as 19L departures. If SFO is sending most departures off runways 19, some will be off 19R -- it's not rare, given that they're departing the 19s.

I have a slide of a Tower Air 747 departing 19R to JFK.

xxcr wrote:

SFO is one of the best airports IMO to fly out of. Delays are minimal and only bad a few weeks out of the year. It's like saying DL or AA should move their JFK ops to IAD or DCA....not much different.

You have a very high bar for what you consider problematic delays. There are few airports that have more maximal delays than SFO (see above list that has SFO 27th out of 30 for on time arrivals).

Any airport can suffer a truly egregious weather day like yesterday. The real problem with SFO is the everyday fog throughout the summer and early fall that produces cascading delays and has an effect on both UA and AS operations in lots of other places. I'd like to know what portion of AS's total delays in Seattle is actually attributable to troubles at SFO--I suspect it would be surprisingly high.

ucdtim17 wrote:

xxcr wrote:

SFO is one of the best airports IMO to fly out of. Delays are minimal and only bad a few weeks out of the year. It's like saying DL or AA should move their JFK ops to IAD or DCA....not much different.

You have a very high bar for what you consider problematic delays. There are few airports that have more maximal delays than SFO (see above list that has SFO 27th out of 30 for on time arrivals).

you have a point there. my point is just from my experience. I fly out of SFO 40-50x a year, and i experience maybe 5 delays that are weather related. I always have issues leaving LAX or that could just be my luck.....

BoeingGuy wrote:

What do they do when they takeoff on 19R, which I believe is extremely rare. 19L takeoffs make a left turn and head south over Burlingame. What about 19R takeoffs?

When I lived in Millbrae as a young child, 1R and 1L approaches were straight in over the hill and houses, not the curved approaches they do now. That's over a 3 degree approach to keep 1000 feet above the Mills Estate neighborhood. It was pretty wild.

I dont remember any flights taking off from 19R or 19L. I've landed on 19R once or twice but never take. My question is, why dont flights take off from 19R/L???

BoeingGuy wrote:

What do they do when they takeoff on 19R, which I believe is extremely rare. 19L takeoffs make a left turn and head south over Burlingame. What about 19R takeoffs?

When I lived in Millbrae as a young child, 1R and 1L approaches were straight in over the hill and houses, not the curved approaches they do now. That's over a 3 degree approach to keep 1000 feet above the Mills Estate neighborhood. It was pretty wild.

Speaking of landing on the 1's, I captured this a few years ago while driving back from work and stopped at the BART station. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIIxAIWFM90 Wind was howling for a long time that day and planes were coming on the 1's for quite a while. Wish this happened more often!

BoeingGuy wrote:

What do they do when they takeoff on 19R, which I believe is extremely rare. 19L takeoffs make a left turn and head south over Burlingame. What about 19R takeoffs?

When I lived in Millbrae as a young child, 1R and 1L approaches were straight in over the hill and houses, not the curved approaches they do now. That's over a 3 degree approach to keep 1000 feet above the Mills Estate neighborhood. It was pretty wild.

Speaking of landing on the 1's, I captured this a few years ago while driving back from work and stopped at the BART station. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIIxAIWFM90 Wind was howling for a long time that day and planes were coming on the 1's for quite a while. Wish this happened more often!

xxcr wrote:

BoeingGuy wrote:

What do they do when they takeoff on 19R, which I believe is extremely rare. 19L takeoffs make a left turn and head south over Burlingame. What about 19R takeoffs?

When I lived in Millbrae as a young child, 1R and 1L approaches were straight in over the hill and houses, not the curved approaches they do now. That's over a 3 degree approach to keep 1000 feet above the Mills Estate neighborhood. It was pretty wild.

I dont remember any flights taking off from 19R or 19L. I've landed on 19R once or twice but never take. My question is, why dont flights take off from 19R/L???

They do and did yesterday afternoon/evening.

xxcr wrote:

I dont remember any flights taking off from 19R or 19L. I've landed on 19R once or twice but never take. My question is, why dont flights take off from 19R/L???

For the same reason there aren't departures from rwy 8 at BUR - rising terrain less than a runway length from the ends of the 19s. They have to turn left immediately after taking off from these runways for both noise abatement and engine-out obstacle clearance performance. Not an ideal situation if you value safety, so these runways are used as a LAST resort.

With the gusty winds at 140 over 30 knots, there would be a lot of turbulence landing 10R through the San Bruno gap. The numerous WS warnings are no surprise.

Another crappy day at SFO. Average delays 2.5hrs



CTL ELEMENT: SFO
ELEMENT TYPE: APT
ADL TIME: 2136Z
DELAY ASSIGNMENT MODE: UDP
ARRIVALS ESTIMATED FOR: 08/2136Z - 09/0859Z
CUMULATIVE PROGRAM PERIOD: 08/1700Z - 09/0859Z
PROGRAM RATE: 28/28/28/28/28/28/25/25/25/25/25/25
FLT INCL: ALL CONTIGUOUS US DEP
DEP SCOPE: (ALL+CZV_AP) ZLA ZAU ZLC ZTL ZDC ZNY ZHU ZJX ZFW ZOB ZDV
ZOA ZSE ZBW ZMA ZKC ZME ZID ZAB ZMP
CANADIAN DEP ARPTS INCLUDED: CYEG CYVR CYYC
DELAY ASSIGNMENT TABLE APPLIES TO: ZOA
MAXIMUM DELAY: 912
AVERAGE DELAY: 151
IMPACTING CONDITION: WEATHER / WIND
COMMENTS: LANDING RWY 19L DEPARTING 10L/10R.1.
ALL FLIGHTS RELEASED ON THE NEW EDCTS

xxcr wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

xxcr wrote:

SFO is one of the best airports IMO to fly out of. Delays are minimal and only bad a few weeks out of the year. It's like saying DL or AA should move their JFK ops to IAD or DCA....not much different.

You have a very high bar for what you consider problematic delays. There are few airports that have more maximal delays than SFO (see above list that has SFO 27th out of 30 for on time arrivals).

you have a point there. my point is just from my experience. I fly out of SFO 40-50x a year, and i experience maybe 5 delays that are weather related. I always have issues leaving LAX or that could just be my luck.....

Sure, but then there's the amount that aren't related to weather. I can't remember the last flight I took out of SFO after 5 or 6 pm that didn't sit on the tarmac for a significant amount of time (30 minutes plus) between pushback and departure, and that's probably 15 flights in the last year. Granted, the delays aren't as bad early in the day, but SFO has issues to the point that I use SJC whenever feasible and live with the lack of lounge access.

mict wrote:

sincx wrote:

mict wrote:

Weather is bad enough that there are some go arounds. UA525 from IAD just went around.

It ended up diverting to SJC.

It just took off from SJC heading to SFO now

This was my aircraft to go to LAX. 4 hour delay!

AeroMexico SFO flight diverted to OAK because of weather on Thursday. After long delay, 2 passengers were escorted off the plane by police.

"One man became upset and threatened to open the aircraft door and exit. Crews were concerned that it would activate emergency ramp system on an active tarmac. . ."

"Eventually, the flight was deplaned and passengers went through customs at Oakland Airport."

[about 4 hours after landing at OAK]

https://abc7news.com/travel/2-unruly-pa ... s/5049435/

http://www.fox5atlanta.com/facebook-ins ... d-from-sfo

You know, on the day of the 5 hour ATC delays, planes held at the end of the 10s for 3-4 hours waiting to take off, with some returning to the gate and departing 5-6 hours after initial push, and the 19s, 28s, and 10s were being used for take off at the SAME TIME because the winds kept shifting at one point. Does that sound normal? JFK and the other major US airports have similar delays when strange winds narrow them down to 1 runway or several configuration changes. Just one of those days, average ATC delays over 2 hours are rare at SFO.

Hell, the Lufthansa 747-8i, Virgin Atlantic A340-600, SAS A340-300, British Airways 747, ect all went off the 19s that day. Very rare to see that, usually even if the 19s are being used for departures, most heavies take the crosswind off 10L/R. Not an option that day, you sat by the 10s for hours until you could go, or blasted off over the Millbrae hills. At 430AM, the Hawaii flights were arriving and there were still United and Alaska planes between the 28s holding for gates! Not a normal occurrence, by any means.

Will united book people on other airlines , or this weather related and tough luck?

EGE, MTJ, ASE not the easiest places to reroute people

Delays 2:39 right now; weather will get worse this week leading up to big storm Wed/Thurs. There's currently a high wind watch for Wednesday so be prepared for long delays if you're planning to fly through SFO then.

Why doesn’t ATC cancel the heck out of SFO preventatively, like they did in DCA/ IAD yesterday with winter storm GIO?

ncflyer wrote:

Why doesn’t ATC cancel the heck out of SFO preventatively, like they did in DCA/ IAD yesterday with winter storm GIO?

ATC does not cancel anything. Airlines do.

ATC will work whatever they can based on conditions available, be it weather, number of runways or what not and issue flow rates and advisories accordingly.

SFO delays today:

"Due to WEATHER/WIND traffic mgmt prgrm causing some arriving flight delays averaging 3 hours and 35 minutes."

I was looking at flightradar today and it seems EK225 had aborted landing on 19. Based on playback, it seems A380 came all the way down to 100 ft before spooling back up and making sharp left turn to avoid Millbrae mountains. Must be quiet a site and a scare for the passengers.

Ahhh...SFO. Summer time. Ugh. Had a flight scrubbed from MFR-SFO like 3 days in a row. Fog. Regionals get stomped on. Horrible airline to connect to during the foggy months. Surprised it is this bad also during winter...good geographic location but man that airport suffers from weather

fortunerunnner wrote:

I was looking at flightradar today and it seems EK225 had aborted landing on 19. Based on playback, it seems A380 came all the way down to 100 ft before spooling back up and making sharp left turn to avoid Millbrae mountains. Must be quiet a site and a scare for the passengers.

I landed around 8pm in the middle of the storms strongest cell, 18033G49KT and I needed a fresh pair of underwear once we reached the gate.

Karlsands wrote:

The main reason sfo gets backed up worse for trivial events weather wise is because of the lateral proximity between runways, they have to stagger approaches more so.

they already thought of that and the Enviornmental lobby put a halt to offsetting the runways into the Bay, to widen the runway Spacing? the superbay, all corporate parking the Coast Guard and part of United's parking lot and maybe a few Hangars might have to go. \But at what cost and for Whom? Maybe the airlines need to rethink this or there needs to be another Airport site looked at. In Contra Costa County, Marin County, or Santa Clara county, (where the Airport would be a minimum of 1 hrs Drive north-East, East , South or North of SFO in Pretty Expensive real Estate. OR spend a couple of hundreds of million Bucks to build new Freeways between Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose with Direct Transit Railways, or Road Interchanges. If they started tomorrow? The Lawsuits might be settled by 2030.

6:30 wheels up delay now. At midnight.

LH459, the A380, had to go off 19L tonight! Wow, first time I even know of that happening since the Asiana crash forced all departures to the 19s for 2 days in 2013. Real strong winds, but airlines at SFO proactively cancelled flights this time, so even tough nothing could take off for periods of time due to 50 knot windsheer(!) on departure, things went OK. Minus the delays.

Chasensfo wrote:

LH459, the A380, had to go off 19L tonight! Wow, first time I even know of that happening since the Asiana crash forced all departures to the 19s for 2 days in 2013. Real strong winds, but airlines at SFO proactively cancelled flights this time, so even tough nothing could take off for periods of time due to 50 knot windsheer(!) on departure, things went OK. Minus the delays.

I’m not sure that a 6:26 delay at midnight is “ok”. I’ve been flying into and out of here for 25 years and I’ve never seen it this bad

Our SFO crew timed out waiting for a wheels up today. Flight is delayed until later in the morning now.

trav777 wrote:

Ahhh...SFO. Summer time. Ugh. Had a flight scrubbed from MFR-SFO like 3 days in a row. Fog. Regionals get stomped on. Horrible airline to connect to during the foggy months. Surprised it is this bad also during winter...good geographic location but man that airport suffers from weather

Summer fog doesn't usually generate 61 mph gusts like the storm yesterday. Bad today too.

ucdtim17 wrote:

trav777 wrote:

Ahhh...SFO. Summer time. Ugh. Had a flight scrubbed from MFR-SFO like 3 days in a row. Fog. Regionals get stomped on. Horrible airline to connect to during the foggy months. Surprised it is this bad also during winter...good geographic location but man that airport suffers from weather

Summer fog doesn't usually generate 61 mph gusts like the storm yesterday. Bad today too.

61? good lord what a storm. Sometimes those pacific storms are like hurricanes...i used to live right on the coast. Port Orford in OR has Cape Blanco which is one of the windiest places on the coast, 70+ isn't uncommon there

Worst winds I experienced for a landing were a flight from MEL-SYD, gusts were like 35-50 kt or something, we had to do one go around.

strfyr51 wrote:

Maybe the airlines need to rethink this or there needs to be another Airport site looked at. In Contra Costa County, Marin County, or Santa Clara county, (where the Airport would be a minimum of 1 hrs Drive north-East, East , South or North of SFO in Pretty Expensive real Estate. OR spend a couple of hundreds of million Bucks to build new Freeways between Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose with Direct Transit Railways, or Road Interchanges. If they started tomorrow? The Lawsuits might be settled by 2030.

We already have alternate airports in far better locations than any new airport would be and at least direct rail access to one (OAK). People want to fly to "San Francisco" though and airlines prefer the delays to operating out of OAK so until that changes, this is what we get.

xxcr wrote:

747megatop wrote:

janders wrote:

Looks what killing the operation again today is that they are using 10/19s instead of 01/28s

Must be killer for UA with international connections. With only single daily flight to most points across the Pacific, they must be stranding lots of people during such days.

SFO is an airport to be avoided at all costs for transiting. It is delay prone. UA much better off moving their hub down to LAX. I think LAX is the least delay prone major airport in the country perhaps. SFO is definitely a nightmare of an airport for an airline to run a hub out of.

SFO is one of the best airports IMO to fly out of. Delays are minimal and only bad a few weeks out of the year. It's like saying DL or AA should move their JFK ops to IAD or DCA....not much different.

LAX has their own issues to deal with. They are extremely congested when it comes to gate space and flights will sometimes have to wait for the gate area to clear since its a one way rd for most gates.

Eh? SFO is one of the best airports to fly out of? All it takes is clouds and a few heavy showers to throw travel out of gear at SFO. JFK is defnitely in much better shape considering that is is far busier than SFO and can handle bad weather much better than SFO. LAX has congesion issues but definitely doesn't figure in the top 10 worst on-time airports for weather related delays. SFO tops the list btw -

https://weather.com/travel/news/2018-11 ... s-airports

747megatop wrote:

xxcr wrote:

747megatop wrote:

SFO is an airport to be avoided at all costs for transiting. It is delay prone. UA much better off moving their hub down to LAX. I think LAX is the least delay prone major airport in the country perhaps. SFO is definitely a nightmare of an airport for an airline to run a hub out of.

SFO is one of the best airports IMO to fly out of. Delays are minimal and only bad a few weeks out of the year. It's like saying DL or AA should move their JFK ops to IAD or DCA....not much different.

LAX has their own issues to deal with. They are extremely congested when it comes to gate space and flights will sometimes have to wait for the gate area to clear since its a one way rd for most gates.

Eh? SFO is one of the best airports to fly out of? All it takes is clouds and a few heavy showers to throw travel out of gear at SFO. JFK is defnitely in much better shape considering that is is far busier than SFO and can handle bad weather much better than SFO. LAX has congesion issues but definitely doesn't figure in the top 10 worst on-time airports for weather related delays. SFO tops the list btw -

https://weather.com/travel/news/2018-11 ... s-airports

I agree that SFO is far from ideal to fly out of. I've lived in the Bay Area for 30+ years. It doesn't take much to throw schedules out of wack at SFO from winter storms to summer fog. By far, SJC and OAK are way way better to fly out of, much less prone to weather delays. SFO is just absolutely ridiculous in terms of delays as a result of weather.

747megatop wrote:

xxcr wrote:

747megatop wrote:

SFO is an airport to be avoided at all costs for transiting. It is delay prone. UA much better off moving their hub down to LAX. I think LAX is the least delay prone major airport in the country perhaps. SFO is definitely a nightmare of an airport for an airline to run a hub out of.

SFO is one of the best airports IMO to fly out of. Delays are minimal and only bad a few weeks out of the year. It's like saying DL or AA should move their JFK ops to IAD or DCA....not much different.

LAX has their own issues to deal with. They are extremely congested when it comes to gate space and flights will sometimes have to wait for the gate area to clear since its a one way rd for most gates.

Eh? SFO is one of the best airports to fly out of? All it takes is clouds and a few heavy showers to throw travel out of gear at SFO. JFK is defnitely in much better shape considering that is is far busier than SFO and can handle bad weather much better than SFO. LAX has congesion issues but definitely doesn't figure in the top 10 worst on-time airports for weather related delays. SFO tops the list btw -

https://weather.com/travel/news/2018-11 ... s-airports

lol that is true. I rarely have flights that are delayed to weather.

Haven't flown to JFK in almost 5 years, since i UA doesn't fly there. i'll EWR over JFK.

747megatop wrote:

xxcr wrote:

747megatop wrote:

SFO is an airport to be avoided at all costs for transiting. It is delay prone. UA much better off moving their hub down to LAX. I think LAX is the least delay prone major airport in the country perhaps. SFO is definitely a nightmare of an airport for an airline to run a hub out of.

SFO is one of the best airports IMO to fly out of. Delays are minimal and only bad a few weeks out of the year. It's like saying DL or AA should move their JFK ops to IAD or DCA....not much different.

LAX has their own issues to deal with. They are extremely congested when it comes to gate space and flights will sometimes have to wait for the gate area to clear since its a one way rd for most gates.

Eh? SFO is one of the best airports to fly out of? All it takes is clouds and a few heavy showers to throw travel out of gear at SFO. JFK is defnitely in much better shape considering that is is far busier than SFO and can handle bad weather much better than SFO. LAX has congesion issues but definitely doesn't figure in the top 10 worst on-time airports for weather related delays. SFO tops the list btw -

https://weather.com/travel/news/2018-11 ... s-airports

Define "far busier"? JFK was 1.3% busier last summer doing a whopping 59 more flights a week than SFO (4,677 vs 4,618)......