SFO had an impressive amount of expansion in 2016, adding places like BNA, NAN, TAO, TLV, and XIY, along with capacity increases.

Next year new airlines/destinations appear to be:

AB to TXL
AS/VX to MCO, MSP, and SNA
AY to HEL
DL to BOS
MT to MAN
UA to CVG, DTW, and TPA
VS to MAN

As well as a few capacity increases on CZ to CAN and KE to ICN (and I've lost track of the other ones).

Any predictions or rumors on other changes for 2017? UA to BDL/MKE/CLT/CMH? New secondary Chinese airlines? An expansion by AS/VX to more airports? More India flights?

SFO is getting quite a lot of new flights, which is good to see. I don't think SFO will get any new destinations in China, AS/VX have a small expansion coming, while there will be no more additional flights to India. Seven weekly flights between SFO and DEL is more than enough.

Southwest is adding SFO-PDX 3x daily starting June 4, 2017. How many dailies between SFO and PDX does this make?

AS -5x daily?
UA -9x daily?
VX -3x daily?
WN -3x daily

simpv wrote:

Any predictions or rumors on other changes for 2017? UA to BDL/MKE/CLT/CMH?

With United's recent interest in domestic expansion and it's build up at its SFO hub I could see a restart of its former daily BDL-SFO service; though probably not on the 757s I remember taking on that route previosuly.

I still hold out hope that at some point AA may take the plunge and reenter SFO-BOS with 2-3x daily flights - it's a crowded and competitive market, but also a huge one. As I've said before, I've got to think it's probably one of the largest - if not the single largest - domestic U.S. O&D markets without an AA nonstop.

Whats next at SFO?

Slots.

For first 10-months of 2016 airport has 2nd worst performance of US airports (only LGA worse)
https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/subject_ar ... 0/table_04

mercure1 wrote:

Whats next at SFO?

Slots.

For first 10-months of 2016 airport has 2nd worst performance of US airports (only LGA worse)
https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/subject_ar ... 0/table_04

Majority of that performance is weather related so slots will make very little difference

Until 2022 there will be almost no increase in service by most carriers except UA and carriers using International. Elsewhere gates are fairly well utilized and do not have a great deal of unused time to take advantage of. Since AS will be moving to VX gates some flight will need to be combined and dropped unless they consider splitting ops between to ends of the airport which is very unlikely.

The TWA hanger has come down and that was a sad sight to see.

atypical wrote:

Majority of that performance is weather related so slots will make very little difference

Its historically been very well established what the airports realistic capacity is. Airlines however over schedule particularly at certain periods during of the day.

If the airports hourly rate is 40-50, airlines should not be scheduling 60-70.

A slot regime would help by to starting too smooth out the operation by pushing activity away from the peaks, and also help establish a more realistic continuous operational tempo.

FAA already designated SFO a level-2 airport which means airlines must formally submit planned schedules for review and that "voluntary" schedule coordination and modifications are possible between airlines.

The FAA is only one step away from designating the airport under slot controls should the voluntary changes not avoid exceeding the coordination parameters.
Unfortunately the airports performance in 2016 was worse than 2015, so I am afraid its only matter of time before FAA must step in as the self policing regime under level-2 has not produced desired improvement last couple of years.

Thought read somewhere that AA is adding a 4th flight (permanently) between MIA and SFO.

Hopefully we'll see more WN adds once T1 is complete. Although OAK and SJC are their bay area focuses, the SFO-PDX add may be a sign of future additions

LAXintl wrote:

atypical wrote:

Majority of that performance is weather related so slots will make very little difference

Its historically been very well established what the airports realistic capacity is. Airlines however over schedule particularly at certain periods during of the day.

If the airports hourly rate is 40-50, airlines should not be scheduling 60-70.

A slot regime would help by to starting too smooth out the operation by pushing activity away from the peaks, and also help establish a more realistic continuous operational tempo.

FAA already designated SFO a level-2 airport which means airlines must formally submit planned schedules for review and that "voluntary" schedule coordination and modifications are possible between airlines.

The FAA is only one step away from designating the airport under slot controls should the voluntary changes not avoid exceeding the coordination parameters.
Unfortunately the airports performance in 2016 was worse than 2015, so I am afraid its only matter of time before FAA must step in as the self policing regime under level-2 has not produced desired improvement last couple of years.

+60% of delayed SFO flights are due to weather. Slots, no matter how well planned, can not address those delays. Further SFO is gate contained for all domestic terminals and most domestic airlines are currently operating close to max operations so obtaining a gate is going to be considerably more difficult than the slot.

atypical wrote:

+60% of delayed SFO flights are due to weather. Slots, no matter how well planned, can not address those delays. Further SFO is gate contained for all domestic terminals and most domestic airlines are currently operating close to max operations so obtaining a gate is going to be considerably more difficult than the slot.

You miss the point. With slots an airports scheduled activity is smoothed out, and delays become more manageable.

So yes you will certainly have weather issues and delays, but instead of airlines packing in lets say a peak of 100 flight in an hour, with slots the max scheduled hourly rate might be only 80, so 20 fewer flights to deal with incase of delays.

Its been well proven that slot control scheduling regime improves OT airport performance as it help reduce pressure on the operation by airlines scheduling solely at their own benefit without consideration of the larger good and capability of the airfield.

Looking forward to seeing AY at SFO! Maybe they will send A350 someday!

LAXintl wrote:

You miss the point. With slots an airports scheduled activity is smoothed out, and delays become more manageable.

So yes you will certainly have weather issues and delays, but instead of airlines packing in lets say a peak of 100 flight in an hour, with slots the max scheduled hourly rate might be only 80, so 20 fewer flights to deal with incase of delays.

Its been well proven that slot control scheduling regime improves OT airport performance as it help reduce pressure on the operation by airlines scheduling solely at their own benefit without consideration of the larger good and capability of the airfield.

I am sorry but it is you who has missed the point. I am discussing only SFO, not capacity planning in general. SFO has no capacity over-utilization issues as defined by the FAA and IATA. SFO experiences temporary capacity reductions during inclement weather which is not addressable by IATA or FAA slot controls.

I'm probably the only hold-out on here for a UA SFO-GRU/LIM/BOG. I'm surprised Lima and Bogota haven't asked for more accessibility to Asia with them being in APEC and the TPP.

Per IATA and experience we've seen in Europe, airport slot programs have been proven to improve on-time performance as they help better manage airfield usage by removing spikes and peaks based on airlines hub scheduling desires.

TWA772LR wrote:

I'm probably the only hold-out on here for a UA SFO-GRU/LIM/BOG. I'm surprised Lima and Bogota haven't asked for more accessibility to Asia with them being in APEC and the TPP.

I agree, even though this has been discussed ad length at why a SFO-GRU probably would not work, I hold at hope that UA would give it a shot one day, especially when things improve one day. I think a split week frequency between SFO-LIM/BOG could work.

simpv wrote:

SFO had an impressive amount of expansion in 2016, adding places like BNA, NAN, TAO, TLV, and XIY, along with capacity increases.

Next year new airlines/destinations appear to be:

AB to TXL
AS/VX to MCO, MSP, and SNA
AY to HEL
DL to BOS
MT to MAN
UA to CVG, DTW, and TPA
VS to MAN

As well as a few capacity increases on CZ to CAN and KE to ICN (and I've lost track of the other ones).

Any predictions or rumors on other changes for 2017? UA to BDL/MKE/CLT/CMH? New secondary Chinese airlines? An expansion by AS/VX to more airports? More India flights?

Don't forget UA to MIA 1x daily and AA going from 3x to 4x daily on that route.

LX is also moving from a daily A340 to B77W service which will be an increase of 121 seats a day

What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF and the State. But I can fly all over the world now out of OAK and SJO and it grows every year so good riddance SFO. It was a dream last month to fly a brand new 787 out of Oakland nonstop to Gatwick and back.

[quote="n471wn"]What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF."

In time they will fill the bay to to create more runway separation. Might take another 10 or 20 years, but it will happen out of necessity--if technology cannot improve the current runway utilization.

There are good reasons why it is taking so long to change public opinion: "In 1959, the United States Army Corps of Engineers released a report stating that if current infill trends continued, the bay would be as big as a shipping channel by 2020. This news created the Save the Bay movement in 1960, which mobilized to stop the infill of wetlands and the bay in general, which had shrunk to two-thirds of its size in the century before 1961.[9]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay

If it weren't for the "environmental whackos" there might not be a bay at all now. Of course that would be fine with some people.

n471wn wrote:

What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF and the State. But I can fly all over the world now out of OAK and SJO and it grows every year so good riddance SFO. It was a dream last month to fly a brand new 787 out of Oakland nonstop to Gatwick and back.

Thanks for the Rant, we will miss you. I assume you mean SJC as SJO is San Jose, Cosata Rica.

New Runways in the Bay will not happen, IMO. Technology , like CASPR (sp) and slot control will help the situation.

legacyins wrote:

n471wn wrote:

What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF and the State. But I can fly all over the world now out of OAK and SJO and it grows every year so good riddance SFO. It was a dream last month to fly a brand new 787 out of Oakland nonstop to Gatwick and back.

Thanks for the Rant, we will miss you. I assume you mean SJC as SJO is San Jose, Cosata Rica.

New Runways in the Bay will not happen, IMO. Technology , like CASPR (sp) and slot control will help the situation.

You are right about one thing--I meant SJC

legacyins wrote:

n471wn wrote:

What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF and the State. But I can fly all over the world now out of OAK and SJO and it grows every year so good riddance SFO. It was a dream last month to fly a brand new 787 out of Oakland nonstop to Gatwick and back.

Thanks for the Rant, we will miss you. I assume you mean SJC as SJO is San Jose, Cosata Rica.

New Runways in the Bay will not happen, IMO. Technology , like CASPR (sp) and slot control will help the situation.

You are right about one thing--I meant SJC

Actually the delays at SFO have helped OAK and SJC thrive where if SFO were dependable those other airports would no doubt struggle

legacyins wrote:

n471wn wrote:

What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF and the State. But I can fly all over the world now out of OAK and SJO and it grows every year so good riddance SFO. It was a dream last month to fly a brand new 787 out of Oakland nonstop to Gatwick and back.

Thanks for the Rant, we will miss you. I assume you mean SJC as SJO is San Jose, Cosata Rica.

New Runways in the Bay will not happen, IMO. Technology , like CASPR (sp) and slot control will help the situation.

You are right about one thing--I meant SJC

n471wn wrote:

Actually the delays at SFO have helped OAK and SJC thrive where if SFO were dependable those other airports would no doubt struggle

I would like this to be true, but SFO is the airport that is setting new records each year while SJC and OAK are still trying to catch up to their pre-recession peaks. Of course SFO has enjoyed 5 years of drought while growing this big. Now that we're having a wetter winter, the 3 hour delays are more regular.

Quieter airport surrounds as the number of 787 and hopefully A380 and A350 flights increases and their noise footprint decreases overall airport noise. This has to be a noticeable improvement over the squealing engines of the 707, 727, 737-200 and so on.

n471wn wrote:

What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF and the State. But I can fly all over the world now out of OAK and SJO and it grows every year so good riddance SFO. It was a dream last month to fly a brand new 787 out of Oakland nonstop to Gatwick and back.

Absolutely will never happen. The cost would be prohibitive, and the environmental impact huge.

ANA787 wrote:

Southwest is adding SFO-PDX 3x daily starting June 4, 2017. How many dailies between SFO and PDX does this make?

AS -5x daily?
UA -9x daily?
VX -3x daily?
WN -3x daily

How many from UA are RJ's & from Alaska Q400?

rbavfan wrote:

ANA787 wrote:

Southwest is adding SFO-PDX 3x daily starting June 4, 2017. How many dailies between SFO and PDX does this make?

AS -5x daily?
UA -9x daily?
VX -3x daily?
WN -3x daily

How many from UA are RJ's & from Alaska Q400?

A couple RJs for both, but Q400s are exclusively on PDX-OAK, not SFO or SJC. SJC upgraded a few years ago; hopefully OAK will as well soon.

Edit: Checking a few dates, AS PDX-SFO appears to be all mainline now. Some days UA is all mainline, other days have two OO E175s.

bdlflyer wrote:

simpv wrote:

Any predictions or rumors on other changes for 2017? UA to BDL/MKE/CLT/CMH?

With United's recent interest in domestic expansion and it's build up at its SFO hub I could see a restart of its former daily BDL-SFO service; though probably not on the 757s I remember taking on that route previosuly.

I used to fly that on an A319 years ago. Great flight if you have business in Hartford, Western Mass or Ct.

I'm surprised to see that AA is number two in SFO behind UA with 11.4 percent of the market. Virgin America doesn't even crack the top five (this is for the time period of October 2015 thru Sept 2016.

DFW789ER wrote:

n471wn wrote:

What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF and the State. But I can fly all over the world now out of OAK and SJO and it grows every year so good riddance SFO. It was a dream last month to fly a brand new 787 out of Oakland nonstop to Gatwick and back.

Absolutely will never happen. The cost would be prohibitive, and the environmental impact huge.

It should also be noted that SFO can ONLY expand into the bay. Even if the land around it was unused the airport has no way it can obtain it.

San Francisco Intl (KSFO) is currently experiencing arrival delays for airborne aircraft an average of 1 hours 1 minutes.

https://flightaware.com/live/airport/KSFO

dc10lover wrote:

San Francisco Intl (KSFO) is currently experiencing arrival delays for airborne aircraft an average of 1 hours 1 minutes.

https://flightaware.com/live/airport/KSFO

A major storm system overhead. so?

Any chance SFO-NGO makes a comeback with a 788.
Is gate space a major issue at the optimum time of day?

So.... my understanding is that gate space is the major issue at SFO, along with weather (which... that's always going to be true). I get that slot controls MIGHT help with easing the buildup of delayed flights by smoothing out the peaks, but I don't think the issue at SFO is a capacity issue in the airfield, it's almost purely gates, right? So, assuming the weather is cooperating, slot controls do absolutely no one any good except make the airport expensive to operate out of...

Hmmmm has anyone told the City and County of San Francisco that they can make something cost even more money without solving any problems? I'm sure they'd love to hear about it...

Definitely feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on the airfield capacity thing... I'm just repeating what I've heard previously.

What's next is more gates. Concourse B is under construction and once that's done the full concourse with 6 swing gates (international) and more domestic gates can be made for T1/A. Also in the works is a concourse H on the backside of G which will stretch down mcd. road which will have 3-4 international gates and if full extended will handle all skywest operations. Some remote gates may even be added. And in all of this SFO is trying to get an observation deck approved by the FAA to be built from the old tower.

theSFOspotter wrote:

What's next is more gates. Concourse B is under construction and once that's done the full concourse with 6 swing gates (international) and more domestic gates can be made for T1/A. Also in the works is a concourse H on the backside of G which will stretch down mcd. road which will have 3-4 international gates and if full extended will handle all skywest operations. Some remote gates may even be added. And in all of this SFO is trying to get an observation deck approved by the FAA to be built from the old tower.

Can they remote park aircraft and bus passengers over to the north side United mx ramp to free up some gates?

b747400erf wrote:

theSFOspotter wrote:

What's next is more gates. Concourse B is under construction and once that's done the full concourse with 6 swing gates (international) and more domestic gates can be made for T1/A. Also in the works is a concourse H on the backside of G which will stretch down mcd. road which will have 3-4 international gates and if full extended will handle all skywest operations. Some remote gates may even be added. And in all of this SFO is trying to get an observation deck approved by the FAA to be built from the old tower.

Can they remote park aircraft and bus passengers over to the north side United mx ramp to free up some gates?

SFO will also be reconfiguring the International Terminal so that all gates can be accessed post-security. Not sure on the timing but it is in the works.

atypical wrote:

DFW789ER wrote:

n471wn wrote:

What's new at SFO? Well perhaps they will wake up to adding another runway with proper separation and doing something about their ridiculous delays. But probably not with the environmental whackos who run SF and the State. But I can fly all over the world now out of OAK and SJO and it grows every year so good riddance SFO. It was a dream last month to fly a brand new 787 out of Oakland nonstop to Gatwick and back.

Absolutely will never happen. The cost would be prohibitive, and the environmental impact huge.

It should also be noted that SFO can ONLY expand into the bay. Even if the land around it was unused the airport has no way it can obtain it.

I have copies of the old redevelopment project. It shows various scenarios all of which have 1R/19L and 10L/28R moved considerably away from their parallels, and jutting well out into the bay. Even if it happened, the cost would be in the billions and make SFO an expensive place to do business.

There was even a concept that an under-bay rail system (Not BART) connecting the terminals of SFO and OAK. Another idea than never even made it to the "...hey, what if we did this..." stage.

SFOA380 wrote:

SFO will also be reconfiguring the International Terminal so that all gates can be accessed post-security. Not sure on the timing but it is in the works.

I've heard of the plans for reconfiguring the arrivals level for a unified CBP area, but how on earth would they be able to reconfigure the departures level short of, like, making a sterile bridge over the check-in area?

SFOA380 wrote:

b747400erf wrote:

theSFOspotter wrote:

What's next is more gates. Concourse B is under construction and once that's done the full concourse with 6 swing gates (international) and more domestic gates can be made for T1/A. Also in the works is a concourse H on the backside of G which will stretch down mcd. road which will have 3-4 international gates and if full extended will handle all skywest operations. Some remote gates may even be added. And in all of this SFO is trying to get an observation deck approved by the FAA to be built from the old tower.

Can they remote park aircraft and bus passengers over to the north side United mx ramp to free up some gates?

SFO will also be reconfiguring the International Terminal so that all gates can be accessed post-security. Not sure on the timing but it is in the works.

SFO say's 2020 or later. They still need to remodel B, C and F

b747400erf wrote:

theSFOspotter wrote:

What's next is more gates. Concourse B is under construction and once that's done the full concourse with 6 swing gates (international) and more domestic gates can be made for T1/A. Also in the works is a concourse H on the backside of G which will stretch down mcd. road which will have 3-4 international gates and if full extended will handle all skywest operations. Some remote gates may even be added. And in all of this SFO is trying to get an observation deck approved by the FAA to be built from the old tower.

Can they remote park aircraft and bus passengers over to the north side United mx ramp to free up some gates?

No, it's too far away and could be a security hazard at the mx ramp. If they are going to do remotes they'd do them at plot 9. (Ramp to the northwest of G)

anonms wrote:

SFOA380 wrote:

SFO will also be reconfiguring the International Terminal so that all gates can be accessed post-security. Not sure on the timing but it is in the works.

I've heard of the plans for reconfiguring the arrivals level for a unified CBP area, but how on earth would they be able to reconfigure the departures level short of, like, making a sterile bridge over the check-in area?

It will be connected UNDER the check in area. There is already a walkway there (in the back toward the other terminals) that can be modified and enlarged to make it sterile.

reality wrote:

anonms wrote:

SFOA380 wrote:

SFO will also be reconfiguring the International Terminal so that all gates can be accessed post-security. Not sure on the timing but it is in the works.

I've heard of the plans for reconfiguring the arrivals level for a unified CBP area, but how on earth would they be able to reconfigure the departures level short of, like, making a sterile bridge over the check-in area?

It will be connected UNDER the check in area. There is already a walkway there (in the back toward the other terminals) that can be modified and enlarged to make it sterile.

I do not think this is feasible. Also, there would be no purpose to connect Terminal G directly to Terminal A in the International Terminal. What is likely to happen, all Terminals will eventually be connected post security.

ucdtim17 wrote:

n471wn wrote:

Actually the delays at SFO have helped OAK and SJC thrive where if SFO were dependable those other airports would no doubt struggle

I would like this to be true, but SFO is the airport that is setting new records each year while SJC and OAK are still trying to catch up to their pre-recession peaks. Of course SFO has enjoyed 5 years of drought while growing this big. Now that we're having a wetter winter, the 3 hour delays are more regular.

SJC has more international service that it's ever had. It seems to be growing nicely. At SJC's pre-recession peak AA had NRT. It also briefly had TPE and CDG for six months. MX did GDL and Morelia. AC had YYZ and for a very short time YOW.

Now SJC has non-stops to NRT, PEK, PVG, LHR, FRA, and YVR. AS resumed SJC-SJD. AS and Y4 fly SJC-GDL, and AM also applied to serve SJC.

AS and UA are also both starting/resuming SJC-EWR. Biggest omissions from SJC are IAD, FLL or MIA, and more service to BOS. Hopefully, AS or UA will add more SJC service to those destinations.

I can see SJC definitely exceeding it's ~2001 peak in the near future.

Perhaps this has been posted on earlier forums, but this is a presentation from April 2016 of the 5 Year Capital Plan. In addition to gate capacity improvements, I didn't realize they were planning to reconfigure the international terminal arrival hall.
http://media.flysfo.com/media/sfo/Desig ... -07-16.pdf

SFO will be very interesting to watch as the AS/VX merger progresses. Will we see a return of routes like SFO-PHL/YYZ? Will they try popular but competitive destinations like ATL, BUR, KOA, LIH and PHX? Will they try niche routes, perhaps something like a Q400 SFO-CLD service?

UA seems to have pretty much exhausted its expansion opportunities at SFO. Seeing as how routes like AKL, MSY and PIT have been going seasonal, I now have serious doubts when it comes to markets like BDL, CMH and NGO.