SFO vs. OAK
 

Staying downtown San Francisco. Need to do a fly in-fly out to LAX. Both airports are an option, with SFO giving an AA option and thus first class, seprate security and lounge access available.

OAK gives me WN, for 1/2 the price of AA, which makes sense, even though I lose all my perks. But WN dominated airports carry a high "Clampett" factor--long lines with inexperienced travelers, such as I have seen at MDW. I do not fly from MDW as a result.

Can someone give me an opinion on OAK? Assuming BART/cab travel times are equal, is it a decent airport? SFO does not bother me at all, but if OAK is considered a better airport overall it may sway my choices.

MDW is much nicer than OAK. If you are unhappy with MDW, you'd be clinically depressed at OAK.

SFO is closer to downtown SF and also has a direct BART connection. If you take BART to OAK, you'll have to get off at the Coliseum stop and then purchase another bus ticket that will take you to the airport. Cab fare will be much less to SFO than to OAK.

IMO, SFO is a much better airport. OAK is pretty small and not very nice. It is also not a very business traveler-oriented airport, probably because it has the likes of Southwest and Jetblue. I definitely prefer SFO to OAK.

I don't think that OAK is a better airport than SFO.

At OAK, WN has its own terminal, thus upping the "Clampett factor" as you put it. The array of shops/restaurants/etc at OAK is less impressive than SFO, and the ceiling seems to be lower and the terminal gets less light/has fewer windows than SFO.

BART will get you to OAK, but it will be a BART & bus, unlike SFO where BART drops you at the international terminal. The bus from BART to OAK is about 10 minutes, depending on traffic.

OAK is much closer to my apartment, and a week ago, I was able to leave my place, walk the half mile to BART, train, bus, go through security and be at the gate in 45 minutes flat. But it still felt like I was in a 2nd tier airport.

If you want a good airport experience, SFO would be my choice. Plus, you said you'd have a first class seat. Even with a 60 minute flight, it's still nice.

To sum up, there is no question that SFO is a much better terminal, with far easier ground connection to SF (via BART, shuttle or car). The food options at SFO are vastly better. Having said that, I often use OAK for these reasons:

1) Routes -- I haven't checked lately, but Southwest from OAK has had the only nonstop service from SF/Oakland to San Diego. Also, Aloha from OAK operates some of the few Bay Area nonstops to OGG and KOA.

2) Airport location -- if your origin or destination is in the East Bay, OAK is more convenient, especially if you need to be on the road at congested times. Such congestion is, sadly, not limited to rush hours.

3) Fares -- certainly not always, but quite often OAK will have much lower fares to a given destination, and more cheap seats available. (Not surprising, given the presence of Southwest and Jet Blue.)

4) Reliability -- heavy fog and rain can wreak havoc at SFO. They must land the planes one at a time, and this can quickly cascade into long delays for lots of flights. Long flights to/from SFO get priority, but flights from the western USA can be delayed for hours in these situations. Since OAK has only one runway, it is usually not affected by such conditions (although delays at other airports can indirectly cause delays at OAK).

As for the "Clampett factor", to those who really have a problem mixing among the unwashed masses, I suggest that you get over yourself. Just about everyone has some air travel experience now, so you can't really say that there are real inconveniences being around working folks. You are no better than the family from Livermore that has saved up for a couple of years for a trip to Disneyland.

OAK has been undone a bit by its own success. The result is that the facilities are undersized relative to the numbers of people using them. The concourses tend to feel rather crowded and noisy, the bathrooms tend to be quite crowded, and in general, it's hard to keep such a busy place as clean as the airlines (and I'm sure the Port of Oakland) would like. That said, the security lines (at least on the Terminal 1 / non-Southwest side) don't seem that long, and seem to move quite quickly. (of course, you can avoid the southwest security experience, if you want, by making the ~1 block long walk down the sidewalk to Terminal 1, then going back to the southwest terminal airside).

A concourse extension will be opening soon for Southwest, which may reduce some of the crowding there, but most of the gates are not designed for Southwest's "stand in line for awhile" approach to waiting for a flight--so probably much of the existing concourse will continue to feel crowded.

SFO, on the other hand, still seems to have reduced traffic compared to its design--the remnants of 9/11 and the dot-com crash--so the terminals don't feel as crowded. And the United terminal, which is now connected to the AA concourse, was recently renovated, and features cafes, a decent bookstore (for an airport), and more. Plus, the BART connection to the City is better. Is it worth 2x as much? Maybe it depends on who is paying. But it's probably a more comfortable experience.

-Hayden

That's what I like most about SFO. Sometimes we park in the international terminal garage, have a meal in the Int. Terminal's food court (pretty good restaurants there), and have a relaxing stroll to the domestic gates. OAK is rarely a relaxing experience. It feels like a bus terminal that is operating at twice its capacity.

Another vote for SFO, as long as the price difference is acceptable. OAK is much farther from downtown SF by car, especially if there is any traffic on the bridge or the 880 (and there almost always is). Bart to SFO drops you directly in the international terminal. Bart to OAK drops you in a bad East Oakland neighborhood where you transfer to an unreliable bus operated by surly Port of Oakland employees. SFO is much more crowded than I've seen it in a few years, but it is nothing compared to the clusterf*** in the terminals at OAK.

Thank you all for the constructive information and no thanks for the lecture on mixing with the masses. I do not mind inexperienced travelers--I was one about a million miles ago. A terminal full of them is another question, which was what I was trying to avoid. Try flying 100,000 miles a year and I'll bet you won't be singing Kumbaya as 1/2 of the people in front of you forget to take the change out of their pockets when you have a late flight to catch.

FWIW, I've flown Southwest, AA, and Alaska out of OAK with some frequency. Both AA and Alaska have always been quite smooth, and the AA crew at OAK (the TAs go back to be the GAs) have been stellar. The Southwest staff have typically been friendly and energetic. The Southwest experience out of OAK has been fine as long as you don't have to check baggage, but if you do have to check bags, sometimes the waits have been 20+ minutes during peak times.

-Hayden

Frontier airlines announced recently new SFO-LAX service, you may want to see what their prices are like

My Two Cents
 

I fly 10-12 times a year between the Washington-Baltimore area and northern California. I am familiar with all three airports around here, and the four major northern California airports (SFO, OAK, SJC and SMF). I was born in Alameda, which is contiguous to OAK. My destinations in northern California include Alameda, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Tahoe City, Sacramento, Yuba City-Marysville and the Lake Almanor area.

My favorite airport in northern California is SMF. If you live north of the Carquinez Strait, or want to go to the Napa Valley, in my mind SMF is the way to go (it is about equidistant with the city of Napa with the Bay Area airports). Airport is easy to navigate, rarely has delays, never has traffic--although one has to take a bus to the rental car center, it is quick and painless, and the buses are more frequent than they are at OAK or SJC (you take a cumbersome "people mover" train to the rental car center at SFO). For some reason, rental cars are drastically lower in price than at the Bay Area airports. SMF's only drawback is that it does not seem to have airline clubs (Delta inherited Western Airlines' club in the original terminal, but abandoned it when it moved to the new terminal).

Between OAK and SFO, obviously SFO is a bigger airport with more airlines, many international destinations, and more amenities. All the Skyteam airlines have clubs there (although DL's Crown Room is outside security). Plus, the BART station was built into the impressive new international terminal (which requires a ride on the people mover from the domestic terminal where DL is located). At OAK, it is a 15 minute ride from the Colosseum station on the AIRBART bus to the terminal. At both airports, it takes close to 30 minutes to get to the rental car center, whether on the people mover at SFO, including walking and riding in the elevators, or at OAK, where they use the fleet of buses once operated at SFO to take you to a rental car center across the street from the original North Field terminal.

The difference between SFO and OAK comes down to price--if you want a lower airfare, you are pretty much compelled to use OAK (the difference on RT tickets between here and the Bay Area can be as much as $500--I've priced out tickets to OAK at $450 RT and tickets to SFO at over $900. Also, if your destination is in the North Bay, OAK is much more convenient than SFO, as you would have an all freeway trip (via either the Carquinez or Richmond-San Rafael bridges) to within 3 miles of the airport, and they have finished construction on 98th Avenue, which is a multiple lane road with just a couple traffic signals; by contrast, coming from the North Bay to SFO you have to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and then drive on the Park Presidio Blvd./19th Avenue corridor (surface streets with many traffic lights) for 7 miles before you reach I-280.

OAK's Terminal A could be called the "Mexican Bus Station". When redeyes for the east coast are leaving, there are as many as four redeyes headed for Mexico (MX has flights to MEX, Guadalajara and Leon, and something called Azteca has a flight to MEX). There are only a couple of bars open in the terminal beyond security, and there is a burger joint "Giant 1/3 Pound Burger" before security in Terminal A. Over at WN's Terminal B, they were in the process of opening 4 new gates in an annex which is literally on the edge of the Bay.

There is a fairly decent place to eat near OAK on Hegenberger Road off the airport, Francesco's, which has been in business for quite a while (at least 35 years).

I'm fortunate that all 4 airports you mention are 45-60 mins from my home. When I was a UA flyer I flew out of Sacramento all the time, but I find the AA sale fares the last year have been sending me to SFO all the time (and SJC the year before, and OAK the year before that, when AA still did OAK-JFK and OAK-LAX). I'm very dependent on where the best fares are, and it just hasn't been Sacramento recently. I'd love to fly out of there more, but won't pay the premium.

I do have an award ticket on Alaska next month to/from SEA, and will originate at SMF. With $7 a day parking there, and no bridge for me to cross (which jumps to a $4 toll in January, with 2 bridges to cross to SFO ), it's an easy choice for a long weekend trip.

I apologize to your new and improved self for insulting your old self, or vice versa, whichever you prefer.

I do have to throw in my .02 with the new frontier option. I heard they are offering ite competitive fares (to SWA). I am typically a SJC flyer, but try to avoid OAK unless a fare is compelling for me to take. I used to work out of downtown SF and enjoyed taking the SFO connection especially recommended if you are near a Downtown station.

FYI, United has ~9 non-stops between SFO and SAN, starting at 6:30am and going through 9:30pm. All mainline narrowbody equipment.

Prices can be a little extreme though. UA seems to have enough connecting traffic on that route that they don't open up many cheap seats for O&D passengers. There have been a number of times I've had to reluctantly fly WN or do OAK-LAX-SAN on UA to avoid paying $800+ for the UA non-stops.

Thanks. Are these new? I thought I checked for SFO-SAN nonstops a few months ago, but perhaps I just overlooked these.

Hmm. Not as far as I know, but then again, I've only lived here since December 2005 so I wasn't really in the market before, but I'm pretty sure I've been seeing San Diego on the SFO destination screens for quite a while.

You're probably right. I must have overlooked them. It sure seemed odd to me that OAK-SAN was the only Bay Area nonstop other than SJC.

That's great to know for next time. Southwest is getting a little greedy with the N-S Cal. fares these days.

Unfortunately I don't think you can count on UA being much cheaper. Perhaps if you book waaay in advance, but on short notice, UA bends you over on this route. Unfortunately most of my SAN trips usually happen with between 4 and 24 hours notice.

Just for example, if I wanted the first UA flight down there tomorrow and a return flight on Wednesday, UA would sell me a ticket for $1,222. Fare code BUA on the outbound and QUAUP on the return. $559 each way plus tax. Other flights on the same days aren't much cheaper. Heads would explode in accounting.

No wonder Southwest is getting greedy.

I've had great experiences on F9 through Denver--great flight crews, good IFE. I hope their shorter SFO-LAX service is as good!

Separately, from the LAX area, there's always JetBlue out of LGB. A nice alternative to Southwest, if LGB happens to be convenient (a haul from SAN, though, of course).

-Hayden

Okay, maybe the OP didn't use the best choice of words about the Clampett factor. Putting that aside...

I fly out of SFO all the time. The lines at AA are always short -- I'm usually through security in a few minutes, maybe I waited 5+ minutes once or twice. All the gates are very close, and there's a small Admiral's Club. Food on AA side is not so interesting, but post-security you can easily walk to the food on the UA side of the terminal.

I've only flown out of Oakland once recently, on WN. I was doing a last minute trip to LA, and AA wanted $900 while WN wanted $99. At 9:45am I booked a ticket, left the Mission, and made a 12pm WN flight. But, that's only because I had no checked luggage, and I ran to the front of the security line and begged to go so first I could catch my flight. The WN staff at the front said "well, you'll have to ask these people who have been waiting" and the people at the front very kindly let me cut the line. Otherwise, I estimate the line was about 25-30 minutes.

Length of line: Have to give it to AA at SFO

Time to airport: Depends where you're coming from. From the Mission, SFO is faster by both BART and car.

No idea about rental car drop off at Oakland. At SFO, it can add a bit.

Unfortanately, it's also a bit at OAK. They used to have the rental cars right across from the terminal, but they are now just as far away (in terms of time) as they are at SFO.

Being able to walk to your rental car ranks very high in my list of important airport conveniences. It's a disappearing convenience at many airports.

I will only add that during one time during the price wars in the 90's, that FAs--at least the ones I knew--called it the "Summer of the Clampetts," and that some still do every summer. Something to do with plastic bags as luggage as I recall. Not my phrase, just my (poor?) choice of words. Still...ya gotta admit that frequent flyers and non-frequent flyers do not mix well and some--if they save for a year for a trip-- could plan for a minute to make sure they have a clue as to what they are doing TSA wise. Peace.

Peace, indeed. Sorry if I went off the handle on this, but I've spent 16 years in the Bay Area using SFO. I can't count how many times I've encountered some 20- or 30-something acting as if they were an intellectual gift to the world.

I'll travel with the "Clampetts" over these types any time.

They probably were. There are quite a few of those in the bay area, thanks to Stanford and UC Berkeley :D

I don't agree about the "Clampett" factor being more OAK than SFO. In my experience it's more the time of travel. I've been in a sea of yokels at SFO lots of times when flying around weekends and major holidays. The WN weekeday a.m. flights, on the other hand, are all bidness. Everybody seems to know the drill and get through pretty quickly. The nasty thing at OAK is the 6:30 a.m. security line. For some reason it gets insane some days, snaking around baggage claim and out the terminal.

Overall I'm pretty much split between the two. For me it typically comes down to whether I'm flying long distance and whether I'm leaving from the office (SF) or home (Alameda, a stone's throw from OAK).

If you're going to spend any time there, the airside facilities at SFO are FAR better than OAK. Unless you like Round Table pizza for $10 a slice (or whatever it is), in which case you're all set at OAK.

One advantage at OAK is that if the SWA terminal is jammed you can get in through Terminal 1 and walk back around airside to T2. Sometimes WN even leaves from T2.

UA has been flying this route regularly for awhile. It used to be a Shuttle route.

You are spot on with the prices. I can't book ex-SFO to SAN for less than $800 RT whenever I check. The best I've been able to do is when I either have a fixed departure or return is to book a cheap restricted OAK-LAX-SAN one way and WN fully refundable the other way (or vice versa). If the timing work out you can get on a mainline flight between OAK and LAX and go for the upgrade.

For me I'm driven by fares and schedules. If those two were comparable I would always fly out of SFO.

OAK used to be a great quiet alternative to SFO about 10 years ago. Not any more. It is so rundown compared to then that it is quite depressing to spend any significant amount of time there. In fact, if I have any serious delays out of there I look into trying to depart SFO, even if it means a longer overall trip and the need to get across the bay.

Nowadays I use OAK when I'm forced to ride WN or when I can get a nice discounted F ticket to and from the east coast which are hard to come by out of SFO.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned SJC in this thread yet. Isn't it just as close to SFO as OAK is?

Yes, the distances between SFO and SJC and SFO and OAK are approximately the same. However, SJC is much farther from downtown San Francisco than SFO and OAK, and public transportation from San Francisco to SJC is rather complicated.

And IME parking at SJC is a nightmare compared to OAK or SFO.

A word about SJC
 

Since I'm in Santa Clara County, I'll add my 2 cents about SJC.

Obviously if you are in Santa Clara County, or even Fremont (depending on the time of day--I-880 can be a nightmare), SJC is geographically more convenient.

SJC is the other airport for WN in the area besides OAK. It shares Terminal A with AA. The drawback with Terminal A is that lines for security at times can stretch into the car park area. However, once you're past the security line, the gates for Southwest are right there, with little walking (the AA gates require a bit of a walk).

Terminal C is an older terminal with open air gates to the tarmac for the most part. However, at least for Alaska Airlines, the gates are decentralized so that the security line is relatively short because it doesn't share them with the other airlines in C. BUT, the problem with the Alaska gates is that there are no restrooms or food services once you get through security. So use the lavs and get your food first.

This is no longer true. SJC has expanded the secured area for the AS gates to include Togo's and the restrooms directly next to the emergency exit doors. That said, it is still incredibly crowded during most of the afternoon and a miserable place to wait for a flight.

Thanks for the update on the AS gates.

My experience is that for early morning flights the gate area wasn't as crowded. IME you are right about the late afternoon times being packed.