fly to SFO or OAK?
 

Planning a short trip to San Francisco in July and my options for getting there are LAX-SFO or BUR-OAK. Other things being equal I'd opt for BUR-OAK because BUR is a much more convenient starting point for me than LAX. When it comes to transportation from airport to downtown (Financial district), is there much difference in time and convenience between SFO and OAK? I'm not renting a car and don't want a taxi over that distance so I guess I'll be using BART. It looks to me like SFO would be a shorter but is the difference significant? Enough to offset the inconvenience of starting from LAX? Thanks for sharing your opinions.

If you're taking BART, it's not a huge difference between OAK and SFO to get downtown. From OAK, you'll have to take a train connector to the BART station, but that's not a big deal. I'd say your LAX/BUR difference will outweigh any SFO/OAK difference.

OAK/BUR has probably a 90% chance of on-time flights. LAX/SFO probably reduces that to 70% or less.

BART frequencies during non-peak hours aren't very good, but that would be for either airport. I'd take OAK just to eliminate the LAX hassle, and the great improvement of an on time departure/arrival.

That's what I was hoping you'd say! Thanks for the excellent info.

I strongly agree. BUR-OAK on Southwest is among the most reliable flights there are out here. If there are delays, it's usually because an arriving aircraft coming from elsewhere is delayed.

And while the terminals at OAK and BUR are nothing impressive, the airports are very easy on passengers getting in and out.

Also, let me put in another plug for AirBART from OAK to the Colliseum station. I'm not sure it was worth the building cost, but it sure is a big improvement over the buses.

Off-peak BART frequency is even likely to be better from Coliseum, where the OAK connector takes, you than from SFO, because two lines go from there to SF (one starts in Fremont; the other in Dublin-Pleasanton). There's only one line from SFO.

Another vote for BUR-OAK on this one. Much easier to use BUR and Southwest frequencies cannot be beat. Just don't bother taking UA from BUR - delays mean sitting in a pretty non-functional terminal with no better options than to just buy a walkup on WN.

Correct, but only if it's not Sunday :)

I echo all of the advice from others. OAK/SFO to downtown SF is essentially a wash now that the AirBART train is done. Not as much worry about fog going into OAK, either.

Plus if and when your plane arrives, it will be one of yuknighted ekspressez most horrible tiny aircraft.