One of the busiest holiday weekends is here, and travelers at San Francisco International Airport may notice that the crowds are bigger than they’ve been in recent years.
More than 930,000 travelers will funnel through SFO from Thursday through Tuesday, according to SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel. That’s 8.7% more than last year’s Labor Day weekend.
It’s also close to the number of travelers SFO saw in 2019, just months before the pandemic. This year’s prediction is 97% of what the airport handled five years ago, Yakel said by email. In other words, SFO travel crowds are (almost) back.
To make it on time, holiday travelers should arrive at the airport two hours before domestic flights and three hours before international ones, Yakel said.
United Airlines advised passengers to leave even more time. The Standard viewed one Friday-morning boarding pass for a Chicago-bound flight that warned of long security lines and recommended arriving three hours early.
A United Airlines spokesperson said the three-hour warning was issued by mistake: somehow the company posted a years-old notice to the Chicago-bound boarding pass. The spokesperson shared a corrected advisory that suggested passengers “arrive early to avoid delays,” and to get a head start by checking bags from home and leaving luggage in the bag drop shortcut area at the airport.
Yakel said SFO has not been advised of staffing woes for Thursday, which was expected to be the busiest day of travel at the airport.
“I have TSA Pre, so that should make it a little easier,” said Bay Area resident Katelin Tharp, who on Thursday was booted from an overbooked flight to Boston, where she’s beginning her fifth year at Northeastern University. She was ready to try again later. “So, I’ll be hanging out for a little bit.”
A quartet of friends was at the airport with time to spare so they could say goodbye to one of the crew who was homeward bound to Australia. They had zigzagged across the country by plane — highlights included stops in Florida, Nashville, and Lake Tahoe — after working together at a New York summer camp.
“We’re sad since we just said goodbye to our one friend, and we don’t know if we’re ever going to see her again,” Ellie Mitchell, of the United Kingdom, told The Standard.
Parking at airport garages will be in short supply this weekend, so travelers who want to leave cars at SFO should reserve spaces online as soon as possible, Yakel said. One lot for international flights had already sold out for the weekend by Thursday; the other was almost fully reserved. More spaces appear to be up for grabs in the domestic and long-term garages.
There are no major projects on the freeways near SFO, so with a bit of luck, drivers headed to the airport shouldn’t face major delays, Caltrans officials said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include additional information from United Airlines.