San Francisco International Airport (IATA: SFO , ICAO: KSFO , FAA LID: SFO ) is a major international airport located 13 miles (21 km) south of downtown San Francisco, California, United States, adjacent to the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno in unincorporated San Mateo County. It is often referred to as SFO . The airport has flights to destinations throughout North America and is a major gateway to Europe, Asia, and Australasia.
San Francisco International Airport is the largest airport in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is the second busiest airport in the state of California after Los Angeles International Airport. As of 2008, San Francisco International Airport is the tenth largest in the United States and the twenty-first largest airport in the world, in terms of passengers. It is a major hub of United Airlines and is Virgin America's principal base of operations. It is the sole maintenance hub of United Airlines. SFO is also a focus city for Alaska Airlines.
SFO has numerous passenger amenities, including a wide range of food and drink establishments, shopping, baggage storage, public showers, a medical clinic, and assistance for lost or stranded travelers and military personnel. The airport hosts the Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library, and both permanent and temporary art exhibitions in several places in the terminals. Public Wi-Fi is available throughout most of the terminal area, provided by T-Mobile for a fee.
History
The airport was first opened on May 7, 1927 on 150 acres (607,000 m²) of cow pasture. The land was leased from prominent local landowner Ogden L. Mills, (who in turn had leased it from his grandfather Darius O. Mills) and was named Mills Field Municipal Airport. It remained Mills Field until 1931, when it was renamed San Francisco Municipal Airport. "Municipal" was replaced by "International" in 1955.
The U.S. Weather Bureau began keeping weather observations at Mills Field in May 1927. The weather records have continued under the National Weather Service, which maintained the Bay Area forecast office in the airport's control tower building until forecasting was moved to Redwood City. Although not the official weather observation site for San Francisco (with the official site existing in Duboce Park), data from SFO's automated weather station often appears as belonging to "San Francisco" in media sources outside of the Bay Area.
United Airlines used the Mills Field airport as well as the Oakland Municipal Airport for its services throughout the 1930s.
Starting in 1935, Pan American World Airways used the facility as the terminal for its "China Clipper" flying boat service across the Pacific Ocean. Domestic flights did not begin en masse , however, until World War II, when Oakland International Airport was taken over by the military and its passenger flights were shifted to San Francisco.
After the war, United Airlines used the Pan Am terminal for its flights to Hawaii. It has grown to become one of five United Airlines hubs and SFO is home of United's largest maintenance facility.
In 1954, the airport's Central Passenger Terminal opened for passenger service. Jet service to SFO began in the late 1950s: United built a large maintenance facility at San Francisco for its new Douglas DC-8s. In July 1959 the first jetway bridge was installed in the United States.
Operations, expansion, retreat, and recovery
In 1989, an airport master plan and associated Environmental Impact Report was prepared to guide expansion and development over the next two decades. During the economic boom of the 1990s and the dot-com boom, SFO became the sixth busiest international airport in the world. However, since 2001, when the dot-com boom ended, SFO has fallen back out of the top twenty.
SFO has expanded continuously through the decades. Most recently, a new $1 billion international terminal opened in December 2000, replacing Terminal 2 as the international terminal. This new terminal contains a world-class aviation library and museum. SFO’s long-running program of cultural exhibits, now called the San Francisco Airport Museums, won unprecedented accreditation by the American Association of Museums in 1999.
A long-planned extension of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system to the airport opened on June 22, 2003, allowing passengers to board trains directly at the airport's international terminal bound for San Francisco or points in the East Bay. In 2003, the AirTrain shuttle system opened, conveying passengers between terminals, parking lots, the SFO BART station, and the rental car center on small automatic trains.
It is not uncommon for SFO to experience significant delays in adverse weather, when only one of the airport's four runways can be used at a time, due to a lateral separation of only 750 feet between runways. Airport planners have floated proposals to extend the airport's runways further into San Francisco Bay in order to accommodate during low-visibility conditions the large number of arrivals and departures. In order to expand further into the bay, the airport would be required by law to restore bay land elsewhere in the Bay Area to offset the fill. Such proposals have nevertheless met resistance with environmental groups, fearing damage to the habitat of animals living near the airport and bay water quality.
As such, SFO suffers from loss of service as many airlines, especially low-cost carriers, increasingly shift service to the other two major Bay Area airports at Oakland and San Jose, which continue to expand for the time being. However, SFO has more land connections compared to Oakland and San Jose, being directly connected to U.S. Route 101, Interstate 380, and the BART system.
Recently, recovery at SFO has been evident. Spirit Airlines and Qantas began service to SFO in 2006. United Airlines changed service to Seoul from seasonal to year-round and reinstated non-stop service to Taipei on June 7, 2007. Nonstop service to Taipei was later discontinued in 2008 and is now flown via Narita International Airport near Tokyo. In addition, SFO has become the base of operations for start-up airline Virgin America. In March 2007, Air China increased the frequency of the Beijing-San Francisco service from 5 times weekly to daily, with plans to increase to two daily. In 2007, JetBlue Airways and Irish airline Aer Lingus began service, while Southwest Airlines returned after pulling out in May 2001 citing high costs and delays. Aer Lingus ended its service to San Francisco from Dublin on 24 October 2009, due to Aer Lingus financial problems. In May 2008, Jet Airways began service from San Francisco to Mumbai International Airport with a stop at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, but it was later discontinued in January 2009, citing poor load factors.
A global warming study unveiled in February 2007 revealed that much of SFO would be under water with only a one-meter rise in sea levels.
SFO was one of several US airports which operated the Registered Traveler program from April 2007 until funding ended in June 2009, which allowed travelers to quickly pass through security checkpoints. Baggage and passenger screening is operated by Covenant Aviation Security, a TSA contractor, nicknamed "Team SFO." SFO was the first airport in the United States to integrate in-line baggage screening into its baggage-handling system and has been a model for other airports in the post-9/11 era.
On October 4, 2007, an Airbus A380 jumbo jet made its first visit and test flight to the airport. About 15 months later, on January 14, 2009, an A380, operated by Qantas, made its first regularly scheduled flight to SFO.
On July 14, 2008 SFO was voted Best International Airport in North America for 2008 in the World Airports Survey by Skytrax. The following year on June 9, Skytrax announced SFO as the second Best International Airport in North America in the 2009 World Airports Survey, losing to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
In film and television
- The climax of the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt was filmed at the airport.
- The short-lived television series San Francisco International Airport (1970) was set at the airport.
Aircraft noise abatement
See also: Noise mitigation#Aircraft noise abatement and Aircraft noiseSFO was one of the first airports to implement a Fly Quiet Program which grades individual air carriers on their performance on noise abatement procedures while flying in and out of SFO. The Jon C. Long Fly Quiet Program is an initiative implemented by the Aircraft Noise Abatement Office to encourage individual airlines to operate as quietly as possible at SFO. The program promotes a participatory approach in complying with the noise abatement procedures.
SFO was also one of the first U.S. airports to conduct a residential sound abatement retrofitting program. Established by the FAA in the early 1980s, this program evaluated the cost effectiveness of reducing interior sound levels for homes in the vicinity of the air
Bus Rental San Francisco for Your Next Bus Trip to the Bay Area: First ...
Whether you need a bus rental in San Francisco or are taking a bus tour to in Modesto, see our variety of First Student Charter school buses for your transportation needs.
San Francisco Transportation | Bus Tours | San Francisco Bus Rental
Royal Coach Tours offers the best in San Francisco transportation services. We are your stop for San Francisco bus tours, bus rentals and much more. Contact us today for more ...
San Francisco Bus Tours - Sightseeing Transportation Around The Bay
Enjoy sightseeing bus tours around the San Francisco Bay. Reserve online and save or call us toll free at 888-478-1465 for reservations, group tours, and private charters.
San Francisco Charter Bus | San Francisco Charter Rentals | Bauers IT
San Francisco bus charter services in throughout the San Francisco area. We provide 98% green miles from our fleet.
Charter Bus San Francisco
A San Francisco charter bus expert can help you coordinate group travel plans while visiting San Francisco. Using The BusBank’s tour bus rental network in San Francisco will ...
San Francisco Bus Tour - Downtown Bus Tour of San Francisco on a ...
See more on this San Francisco bus tour. Tour Fisherman's Wharf, Tour Union Square, San Francisco Financial District, Tour Chinatown, & more.
Crazy Catfight on San Francisco Bus Video
When you take the bus instead of a nice touristy trolley car, it really ain't a San Francisco treat.
San Francisco Bus Tours - SanFrancisco.com
Traversing the unique neighborhoods of downtown San Francisco has never been as easy with the help of this double-decker tour bus and narrated guide....
San Francisco Tours | Double Decker Bus Tours | San Francisco, CA
See San Francisco in a classic way with one of these double-decker bus tours! Night tours, downtown loop tours, hop-on/hop-off tours and more are available for travelers to enjoy.
San Francisco Bus Tour 5 in 1 - Bus Tours of San Francisco Hop on Hop ...
A San Francisco bus tour 5 in 1 package of all major San Francisco sights: Downtown tour, Golden Gate tour, San Francisco night tour, Sausalito tour and Golden Gate Park tour.