Does anyone know why recently flights to and from San Francisco is always delay?
Aircraft - 4 Answers
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1 :
It's been going on for years... SFO has two sets of parallel runways, but they are too close for parallel IFR approaches, so the capacity of the airport is decreased when the weather goes below VFR. When I was flying for a west coast regional who served United in SFO, we used to call it the "San Fran 1 - 2 - 3 rule: 1 cloud, 2 airplanes, 3 hour delays"
2 :
Yeah the weather could be to blame for all of the delays. But the aircraft are equipped for category IIIc approaches down to 0 into 0/0 IMC. But it is rare that most pilots do this. (at least here in the US...and I would think twice about trying that in the mountainous terrain like out west) If fuel reserves allow, they can hold until weather improves or divert to the nearest airport with the basic VFR minumums. Pilots flying under 135 have visibility take-off minimums...so if any adverse weather conditions that exist would prevent a take off....so they don't arrive...which causes delays.
3 :
The problem is both the weather, and the airport itself. SFO has two runways that are parallel to each other, but they are "too close" together for both to be in use when visibility drops below a certain threshold. After the fog rolls in, only one runway is active, and suddenly 4 flights a minute becomes 2, and the planes start to stack up in the landing queue, and everybody is delayed. --- Kasey C, PC guru since Apple II days There's too much blood in my caffeine system.
4 :
First of all, not all crews and aircraft, even commercial airliners, are Cat III capable; second, even if they were it wouldn't solve the problem of having parallel runways too close to each other. The constant overcast layer that's here in the summer is the source of the problem, it basically cuts the airport's capacity in half.
