OK, another long answer.... sorry. Generally, if everything else is cooperating (weather, etc.), and only 28L is closed, domestic departures (the majority of which would use runways 01L and R) should not be having to wait too long. But I got some new information today that I did not see in the original press release from the airport. Over the course of the 20-day closure of 28L, runways 01L and R will each be closed as well, for ten days each (in succession). So basically, two of the airport’s four runways will be closed over the course of the 20 days. That will sting – from the departure aspect now, as well as the arrivals.

If there is (bad) weather, then that throws much of the intensive planning out the window. The planning relied heavily on the historical meterologic data that September is one of the least-impacted weather months in the Bay Area. September is also after the heaviest part of the busy summer travel season (SFO just came off of a record-setting August for aircraft operations).

Years ago, when fuel became really expensive and it was very counterproductive to have aircraft stacked up on the taxiway waiting for departure, a procedure called "gatehold" became more widely used, and I am sure there will be quite a bit of those procedures in use during the closures. Basically when gatehold is in effect, the controllers in the tower create a *virtual* cue for departures so that the aircraft await their turn while still in the gate, hopefully better managing the cues of aircraft at the runway(s). So you might not be stuck in line on the taxiway, but you might instead be stuck sitting on the aircraft at the gate... I suppose that's more of a semantic difference, if the issue is being strapped into your seat and not going anywhere.

If I were flying through SFO during this time (fortunately I’m not!), I would be checking my flight’s history every day to see how they have been coping, and how my flight is performing. I expect there will be planned diversions to other airports and passengers bussed to/from SFO. IMHO, that could beat the aircraft traffic jam at SFO itself in terms of elapsed time (we'll save the debate about bay area freeway traffic for later).

As the airport says though, the best strategy will be to try to get in or out of SFO before 9:00am if you have to go through there.