Interesting to see what happened regarding the weekend runway work at at SFO:
As posted above: “ Amazingly, my PDX-SFO flight was showing as on time all morning -- until I got to the gate and they told us that we'd be about 20 minutes delayed. This slipped a bit but eventually we loaded and taxied out to the runway with a wheels up time of 1:05pm. The pilots flew as fast as they could and we landed at SFO around 2:23. It took us about 5 minutes to taxi over to gate 75, and another 5 minutes to be towed into the gate, for a 2:39 arrival. I was the 3rd person off the plane, and I hoofed it over to the International Terminal. I was extremely grateful that we arrived at Gate 75 and not 67 as had been originally scheduled. As I rounded the corner from the United Club along the G concourse, there was a United agent who was standing there looking for me -- and once I confirmed my identity radioed the gate "1A is here, hold the plane". I got to the gate at 2:48, they scanned my BP and closed the boarding door behind me as I entered the plane. “
But this was *not* the case for mid-week SEA-SFO pax on last Wednesday (May 31) on UA 214 connecting to the SYD flight (UA 863). There was a 1 hr hold at SEA announced just as regular boarding was scheduled, so I called the 1K line to appraise them of a potential connection problem for ourselves and one other pax. Upon arrival at SFO, there was an announcement to the effect “Atlanta passengers, flight is being held for you”, but nothing re SYD pax. We took off for Intl gate G102, but encountered NO UA agent (as described above) & instead found the door closed although plane was still at the gate. Ms BH knocked on the jetway door, but was instead threatened by some SFO officiant with a call to security. So we hoofed it up the concourse where we found some UA agents who rebooked us on 863 for the next day … but that’s a whole ‘nother story. So, armed with new flight documents & a sheaf of hotel/meal vouchers it was off to the SFO-area Crowne Plaza for an overnite stay.
Bottom line: In the course of a number of TPAC departures from SFO it has not been unusual for us to be sitting on planes being held for connecting pax. You’d think that with one departure per day for, say SYD or HKG or KIX , you’d hope that this would have been the case here. But NOOOO, (sarcasm alert) guess those Atlanta pax were just plain lucky.