Originally Posted by
char777
I actually think OAK is a really bad comparison. I may be biased since I'm from the East Bay and OAK is a lot closer, but OAK is a great airport. Have you been there recently? The renovated terminals are actually quite nice now (not as nice as SFO T3 Boarding E, but 10x better than Boarding F), security is always a breeze, and with the new BART extension, SFO and OAK are roughly equidistant from downtown SF. OAK is another market that UA retreated from post-merger, and a lot of people (myself included) were sad to see it go, as it was a welcome alternative to SFO.
Agreed. OAK/SFO has no relevance to this discussion. OAK is an excellent regional airport with on time flights, short lines, and easy parking. Unlike NYC, the bay area can only support one international airport.
I can't speak for EWR as it's actually the one NYC airport that I've never flown into, but to me, EWR seems to be more inconvenient to get to from Manhattan than OAK is from downtown SF.
It's very similar to getting to EWR. You can drive and get stuck in bridge/880 traffic or you can take a jam-packed, delay prone BART train and then transfer to the airtran at Coliseum.