JerryFF

SFO will close runways 1L/19R and 1R/19L beginning Sunday, May 17 through the entire summer until mid September. That means all departure traffic will need to use runways 28L and 28R, along with all of the arrival traffic. I cannot believe it.

http://thebat-sf.com/2014/03/20/runw...Traveler%29%29

Eastbay1K

Believe it!

Anyone who has an onward connecting flight would be well-served taking the first available AM flight out of SFO.

This might have just guaranteed that I'll be taking WN (OAK) to get to LAX for onward connecting flights.

goalie

This is gonna be phugly tho it will be fun if the weather "cooperates" and you end up doing the approach and landing on the 10's

pinerd

Who's the genius(es) that decided to pick the peak travel months? (I'm aware the weather is probably better during this period...but not really if you include summer fog)

frontrangeFF

Isn't the fog worse in July and August especially?

docbert

Fog will *hopefully* be less of an issue now that they are allowed to parallel ops during fog. There is still an impact to the number of flights allowed, but it's better than it used to be with no parallel ops at all.

But yeah, it's not going to be pretty. I'll certainly be trying to use SJC more during that period...

Firewind

Parallel landing - heavies - on 28 L & R? ...Oh, fun.

We'll surely have the neighborhoods on our side for getting this thing done in quick-step.

Eastbay1K

The 28s already handle all the landings in typical conditions.

sabbasolo

What are the peak periods at SFO? How does 6pm arrival and 8pm departure on a weekday sound?

Eastbay1K

The issue here is more about where you're coming from and where you're going. The long-haul heavy jets are the ones most likely to be on time. The regional (i.e., west coast and surrounds) flights are the ones that suffer most, and those planes may pass through SFO at least twice during a day.

8 PM shouldn't be a particularly crowded departure hour.

boxo

Perfect, I'm going from MRY to SYD on May 17 with 1h 8m connection and 1h 5m on the June 3 return.

tdietterich

I often fly on regional jets into SFO, and we virtually always land on the 1s. I would guess it is more than a year since I've landed on the 28s.

docbert

It is extremely rare for planes to land on 1L/R. There's a few very specific weather conditions that can lead to it, and even then they try and avoid it.

There's a good diagram showing the normal takeoff/landing paths at http://thebat-sf.com/wp-content/uplo...FOPlanWest.jpg and another showing those used in bad weather (storms, not fog) at http://thebat-sf.com/wp-content/uplo...thEastPlan.jpg

Neither of these shows landings on 1L/R.

SFO also has a "live" flight tracker that also allows you to pull up historic data at http://www.flysfo.com/community-envi...light-tracking I'd suggest looking up your flights and you'll probably find that you didn't actually come in on 1L/R.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen (it does - I've seen it!), but it's extremely rare, and i say that as someone that used to live within a few miles of the airport and knew exactly when 1 was being used for landings!

I think you're confused about which runway is which - which is very common at SFO for some reason!

The two long parallel runways are 28L/R (and 10L/R, but it's rare for those to be used). The two shorter runways are 1L/R (and 19L/R, again, rarely used).

Heavies do parallel approaches on 28L/R almost every day of the year, and usually use the same two runways for takeoff.

I think what gets people confused is that when you're landing on 28L/R it pretty much feels like you're headed North, and when taking off from 1L/R it feels like you're headed east, due to the layout of the bay. I've had countless people tell me the long runways run north/south (and thus are 1/19) - but once you show them a map they realize they are wrong!

The impact of the construction isn't going to be (directly) on landings, as 1/19 are rarely used for landings, but instead of take-offs which will have to use 28L/R instead of 1L/R - and obviously that will then have a flow-on effect for landings on those runways.

Firewind

I did have it backwards. Thank you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv7_lzFKCSM

tropicsplendor

Thanks FlyerTalk for posting this warning about the SFO closure. Just after this came out, I found out my sister & family were confirming their flights over to visit me in Fiji via SFO during the closure and they didn't know about it. I quickly notified her so she could change their ticketing to San Jose and not miss their overseas connection. Vinaka vaka levu FlyerTalk! ^