SFO runway closure

[aprilsp88]

Read the news that 1 of the 4 major runways of SFO will be closed for repair starting tomorrow. UA offer its passenger to switch flight. But if the closure is planned, SFO should already schedule flights accordingly to minimize the delay, right? 

 

https://sfist.com/2019/08/26/planned-20-day-shutdown-of-sfo/

 

The airline representative told me, airport will try to schedule bigger airplane first to minimize their delay, smaller planes have lower priority. Is this true?

 

Thanks,

April

[CruiserBruce]

Generally, when SFO has to reduce flights, smaller,  regional (short distance) flights are the first to get cut. 

 

We are flying back to SFO on the 12th from Boston. Our flight was moved 30 minutes earlier, probably to fit into a slot in the landing schedule. It's a a pretty early flight...congestion gets worse later in the day.

 

The concept they will just use bigger planes is a bit faulty. No airline has many "extra" airplanes just sitting around. Those don't make money. With the 737 Max problem, the slack has gone out of 3 or 4 airline's fleet already. Plus all gates don't fit all airplane sizes, and a couple of other considerations. 

 

[aprilsp88]

2 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

We are flying back to SFO on the 12th from Boston. Our flight was moved 30 minutes earlier, probably to fit into a slot in the landing schedule. It's a a pretty early flight...congestion gets worse later in the day.

 

The concept they will just use bigger planes is a bit faulty. No airline has many "extra" airplanes just sitting around. Those don't make money. With the 737 Max problem, the slack has gone out of 3 or 4 airline's fleet already. Plus all gates don't fit all airplane sizes, and a couple of other considerations. 

 

If the closure was planned 6 months ago, why can't SFO set the schedule then, rather than modify schedule now?

 

Hope your flight will be on time. I read that Wed and Fri are the busiest date, and the later the worse. Is this your experience?

[CruiserBruce]

It WAS changed a number of months ago.

 

Can't speak to Wednesday or Friday being the busiest.

[mina]

We are flying in and out on southwest from phx.  I was able to just switch my flights for no extra $ to Oakland airport.  Southwest is letting you switch any sfo flights to Oakland or San Jose airports without having to pay any fare differences.   We have never done Oakland airport before, but looks like it should be just as easy as sfo.  

Edited September 6, 2019 by mina

[waterbug123]

18 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

The concept they will just use bigger planes is a bit faulty. No airline has many "extra" airplanes just sitting around. Those don't make money. With the 737 Max problem, the slack has gone out of 3 or 4 airline's fleet already. Plus all gates don't fit all airplane sizes, and a couple of other considerations. 

 

 

This^^^

 

Plus not all pilots are certified to fly all aircraft, so using different aircraft often means using different crew.

[aprilsp88]

I meant to say, if there are 2 aircraft need the same runway,  A321 and B788, airport would schedule B788 first because it's bigger. Is this true?

[CruiserBruce]

4 hours ago, aprilsp88 said:

I meant to say, if there are 2 aircraft need the same runway,  A321 and B788, airport would schedule B788 first because it's bigger. Is this true?

Both will be scheduled for a landing or take off slot, so there shouldn't be a time when two planes need the runway at the same time. The size of the plane in this case doesn't matter. This is not how they will reduce capacity during the construction period. They will tell the airlines to cut XX number of take offs and landings during certain time periods,  and leave it to the airlines to meet that requirement. United, in particular, tends to cut the small planes doing short regional flights in this situation. 

 

 

[travelplus]

Runways are now open as of yesterday 8:15 PM one week ahead of schedule!

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/SFO-runways-early-14449291.php