WN Abandoning SFO
 

After getting fed up with the ontime performance and all the myriad of problems at SFO, WN is pulling out. Don't have any particular details, such as when, and where all the "removed" flights are going, but OAK and SJC would be the safe bet. Was on tonight's news.

Southwest will operate flights at SFO through March 4.

http://www.southwest.com/press/prindex.html



[This message has been edited by JerryFF (edited 01-22-2001).]

I hope this is a wake up call to the SFO airport. They MUST restructure the runways.

Now they have airlines leaving the airport! WN is not large at SFO but it is still a statement.

This indeed should be a wake up call for the airport. WN also had gate arguements with FLL and moved a good portion of their flights to WPB. Airports have not figured out that the game is changing again, they are now a part of compition, where as before, they called most of the shots. BWI has had very good management in the past, and look how they have grown. There is a new team in place at BWI now and it will be interesting to see if they can continue to attract new flights and airlines v scaring them away like San Fran.

It might serve as a wake-up call for SFO, but look for the other airlines to gouge travelers even more there. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

------------------
"Sire, it is not a revolt. It is a Revolution!"

Spiff: yes, one wonders how much United is paying them? (just a joke)

Well, remember that SFO wants to restructure its runways. But there's no place for it to expand. Except into San Francisco Bay...

That's the plan being pursued currently, but any fill of the bay is an environmentally sensitive issue. New landfill is prohibited by law, and getting special permission to expand SFO into the bay is going to be a long, tedious process with lots of opposition. Don't expect resolution of this problem for many years.

There may be other reasons that WN is pulling out -- my speculation would be that they still don't have CAT II / CAT III qualified crews & aircraft, which greatly simplifies their scheduling & maintenance & dramatically reduces their costs.

Given that SFO is fogged in much of the time, it's probably very difficult for WN to keep the tight turnarounds that they need, especially if they need for the clouds to lift before they can get in.

This was definitely the case when I lived next to SFO a couple of years ago -- UA Sh*ttle was able to get in and out when WN was grounded.

------------------
My Aviation Pages
My Travel Pages

JRF: at least FLL is making progress ...

bollar: Don't think it's a CAT II/III issue. I think WN's planes are CAT II equipped and SFO is very seldom at CAT III. Besides, the problem at SFO is not so much low minimums for the approaches, but reduced arrival rates any time the weather is less than VFR.

Additionally, if you look at DOT stats, WN tends to have a higher percentage of on-time arrivals than most all other carriers at SFO.

[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 01-23-2001).]

WN's own statement was quite clear: they can make more money with less hassle by flying those aircraft on other routes. SFO is also a hub airport, beyond receiving tourists into the city, it feeds many more connecting travellers through to/from Pacifc destinations. WN is a purely point-to-point mover of travellers. It figures service to the Bay area can be just as well provided into Oakland and San José without putting up with all these SFO problems. It's economics nd nothing more.

Are you referring to the systemwide (per airline) on-time arrivals? You need to have the on-time arrivals for SFO flights only in order to make a comparison.

If a "hub" airport is such a factor, consider this:

Why is WN flying into LAX? LAX is notorious for delays and is a busier facility than SFO. Between SFO and LAX, I am sure that those airports cause a lot of grief to WN for their on-time performance. Fortunately for WN, they do not have a lot of flights into SFO. When I fly into the Bay Area on WN, I always go through OAK. It is always an easier and painless BART ride into The City from there. Also, I really like going through OAK...less hassles.

If a "hub" airport is such a factor, consider this:

Why is WN flying into LAX? LAX is notorious for delays and is a busier facility than SFO. Between SFO and LAX, I am sure that those airports cause a lot of grief to WN for their on-time performance. Fortunately for WN, they do not have a lot of flights into SFO. When I fly into the Bay Area on WN, I always go through OAK. It is always an easier and painless BART ride into The City from there. Also, I really like going through OAK...less hassles.

Like Shareholder said in reverse: they make lots of money at LAX.

they also fly extensively out of BUR for instance, and I am sure that if things got hot and heavy at LAX they'd move out of there too.

They prefer secondary airports to support their business model. I am not surprised they are leaving SFO.

Isn't SFO's problem due to the intersecting runways? SFO has 2 parallel runways used simultaneously for landings and another two, which intersect these 2, used for takeoffs. When there's fog, only one runway each for approach and landing can be used, which cuts volume by at least 50%.

LAX has 4 parallel runways so these can remain operational is almost any circumstance. At least you know delays there should only be caused by backed-up traffic and not due to reduced volume.

SFO's bigger problem is not the intersecting runways, but the parallel runways that are too close together (only 750' apart). Only 2 runways are used for arrivals on a good day (59 per hour) - when the visibility diminishes or wind changes direction, we get only 30 arrivals an hour. This means your Shuttle flight may not leave until tomorrow. (But your flight to LHR will probably be A*OK)

Better radar control systems could allow SFO to use both runways during inclement weather. They plan to cough up $20M to beef up the radar in the next year or so. This should help quite a bit.

JS wrote:
Yes, that's exactly what I'm looking at. These stats are compiled for each airport by airline.

To elaborate on Eastbay1K's comments on general SFO flight ops: When visibility is good, pilots can do side-by-side visual approaches. When the weather is bad and visuals are not permitted, they must do off-set IFRs, which reduces operations by 15-32 per hour. In good weather 60 airplanes an hour can land, in bad weather it ranges from 28 to 45, depending on when the pilots can sight the runways.

During winter storms, when the wind shifts to a southerly or southeasterly, different runways come into use. The arrival patterns are changed and, with three airports being in close proximity, it doesn't work smoothly. You are also then using the same runways for departures and arrivals and the arrival rate becomes very low.

Mikel51 -

I wish you were right that better radar would help the situation. Unfortunately, it is not radar that is the problem but the limitations of accuracy of the ILS approaches. Every instrument approach allows for a certain width of the approach path of arriving aircraft, even the most precise ones. With the parallel runways at SFO as close together as they are, the allowable width of the approach paths to the two runways overlap, and this is not acceptable in weather where the aircraft cannot see each other.

The aircraft fly the approaches on their own using their own instruments. Radar is not involved once the aircraft are within 6 or 7 miles of the airport. Hence, no improvements in radar alone will solve the problem at SFO.

Hopefully they'll increase the flights out of Oakland - much easier airport. However I can see UA's Shuttle flights skyrocketing in price from SFO after 3/4/01.