For more than a week, fliers at SFO have been racking up delays and cancellations because of the government shutdown. Thursday, the weather only added to the problem.
The FAA imposed a ground delay program at SFO because of the weather.
“They’re essentially metering the traffic coming into SFO, so although that’s really focused on arriving flights, if that airplane needs to turn around to represent a departing flight, could also represent a residual delay as well,” said Doug Yakel, a spokesman with the San Francisco International Airport.
That’s exactly what’s happening to George Gadison, who drove all the way to SFO from Sacramento. He and his travel partner are trying to fly to Vancouver.
The plane they will eventually be boarding to get to Vancouver hasn’t landed. Its arrival is delayed because of the weather.
Same for the plane Mallory Singh’s husband is on. They took separate flights to get to the Bay Area from Tampa, but Singh’s husband has not arrived.
“He was supposed to arrive about 30 minutes after me, but he had a layover in Salt Lake City, and so, I’m now stuck waiting at the airport for him for the next 90 minutes or so,” Singh said.
Those delays are affecting about 280 flights, which is about a quarter of SFO’S flight schedule.
The average delay, according to SFO, is about an hour.
There are a little more than 50 flight cancellations, but 46 of those were announced Wednesday as part of the FAA’S ongoing restrictions due to the government shutdown.
Those restrictions continue.
“I have not heard anything or heard anything in the media about when the flight disruptions will be reduced,” said Marc Ventresca, a Mountain View resident.
SFO had reached about 6 % of flights being cancelled because of the government shutdown flight restrictions.
An SFO spokesman says with no word from the FAA on when those restrictions will be lifted – air carriers have already announced 22 flights are cancelled at the airport for Friday.
Source: NBC Bay Area
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