SFO Airtrain
 

If I am arriving on either AA from JFK or AS from LAS is it any easier to use the AirTrain or to just walk it to the BART station and vice versa? It doesn't look like that long a walk but I don't know the most direct route or if it is all on the same level.

It's a brisk 15 minute walk from the exit of either Terminal 1 (AA) or Terminal 2 (AS) to BART, plus the distance from your gate to the exit. There is a signed path the whole way. Airtrain is faster, though I usually walk for the exercise. From T2 there is a shortcut through the lower level garage that can cut the trip in half but there are no signs and you're likely to get lost on your first try.

From AS, you make a right as you leave T2 - walk through T3 to the G side of the International Terminal, and you will arrive at BART. From AA, you make a left as you leave T1, go through the A side of the International Terminal - and walk across over to the G side, and you will arrive at BART.

The longest part of the AA walk might be getting from the end of the B gates to the front of the terminal.

The entire airport is one big circle, but right now there is a big hole in the ground between T1 and T2, so you can't walk between the two of them (except via the parking garage). I would walk. You can probably walk the entire airport loop landside (except during the current construction) in about 20 minutes.

Thank you both

I walk from AA, and I take AirTrain from AS. The overall distance is probably very similar, but AS is a very short walk to AirTrain, whereas with AA, by the time you get to AirTrain it's maybe 5 minutes more to walk to BART.

Total time for either should be under 15 minutes unless you get unlucky catching AirTrain from T2.

How often does the AirTrain at SFO run? The official website doesn't say, and I'm trying to figure out how much time I need to leave to get from Long Term Parking to the terminals.

The webpage you linked to says “departures as frequent as every four minutes” which sounds about right.

I start to get nervous if I don’t pass through LTP entry gate before T-60 min, even carryon only.

Finding a parking spot (unreliable overhead sensors), walking to the LTP station, and the long ride to the terminals can eat up a lot of time.

Yes, the wait for the next train is short. Still, there are four stops from long-term parking before you get to the first terminal stop, International-A. I've never timed it, but it might be a 15-minute ride from long-term parking to Terminal 3 (United).

Keep in mind the actual Terminal 3 station is closed right now due to construction. Last month, I timed it just over 20 minutes to get to the Terminal 2 stop. It's a total of 7 stops now - rental cars, west field road, hyatt, Intl A parking, Intl A, 1, 2.

For whatever reason, they were holding the train at each stop for 2+ minutes. I'm wondering if it has to do with keeping the distances between the trains the same given that there is one fewer station?

It was super frustrating

It can be painfully long. Have also experienced some rather long station waits even before the T3 station closure. Maybe not quite 2+ minutes though.

Sometimes I almost wish they would have found a way to connect the Grand Hyatt with Intl A Parking station (maybe put a moving walkway or something) so that there's one less stop. And I can count how many times I've seen someone use the West Field Rd stop on one hand in the few dozens of times I've used the AirTrain between LTP and the terminals. Although perhaps there's certain times of the day where it's more heavily used.

Thank you all very much for the insight! Glad to know that the train does come reasonably often -- I have been burned by SF public transit too many times to quite trust the website, so I appreciate folks' firsthand knowledge. The extended dwell time does sound extremely aggravating, though :mad:

For this particular trip, I think LTP is still the best option for us. We will just leave some extra time to find a spot and get to the gates. We are carry-on only and have PreCheck, so hopefully even if there is some sort of unexpected delay, we will still have plenty of time.

Last time two times I rode Airtrain, in late December, the door open times were normal.

You might consider ParkSFO. Many of us prefer that to LTP.

Unlike SF public transit, the Airtrain is operated by the Wizard of Oz, or some AI creature, or something without a human. It also doesn't rely on a bunch of floppy disks to be uploaded every day.

Damn You. I had to find out.


Spoiler: it’s totally the Wizards that run it.

Experienced the even longer than normal wait times over the weekend. Probably was around 2 min. This was after landing past midnight, so it could have been due to time of day. I don't remember the stops taking so long when I took it during afternoon hours flying out.