SAN FRANCISCO — Inbound flights to San Francisco International Airport are facing delays averaging two hours and 18 minutes Friday afternoon as federal traffic managers meter incoming flights due to wind.
The Federal Aviation Administration put a ground delay program in place to pace the arrival stream. Under the program, planes bound for SFO are held at their departure cities rather than being placed into holding patterns over the Bay Area. While surface observations at SFO show 10 miles of visibility, mostly cloudy skies, and calm winds, the FAA cited wind conditions aloft as the operational trigger for pacing runway arrivals. An estimated 924 daily flights are caught in the slowdown.
A delay of 138 minutes is double the airport's typical setback. BTS data over the last six months shows SFO averages an on-time arrival rate of 69.0%, with delayed flights running 68 minutes behind schedule on average. Today's program pushes arrival waits well past that normal threshold.
The inbound pipeline is already degraded. Roughly 12% of arriving flights are feeding from airports that are experiencing their own disruptions. San Diego International (SAN), which accounts for 7% of SFO's incoming traffic, and Boston Logan (BOS), which makes up 5%, are both managing ground delays. That compounds delays for planes and crews trying to reach the Bay Area.
If you are scheduled to fly into SFO tonight, check the status of your specific aircraft's earlier legs rather than just your flight's posted departure time. When ground delay programs are active, departure boards at origin cities often adjust in stages as the FAA issues updated departure slots. If you have an evening connection through SFO to an international or final domestic flight, contact your carrier now to ask about rerouting through San Jose or Oakland, or connecting through an alternate hub.
With key feeder routes out of Southern California and the East Coast already falling behind, aircraft will arrive out of sequence throughout the evening rush. Expect rolling gate holds and delayed late-evening departures out of SFO as airlines work through the backlog.