SFO ground stop snarl

Thunderstorms shut down flight movements at San Francisco International Airport for part of Saturday evening, and the delays kept spreading after the weather moved through. (yahoo.com) San Francisco International Airport issued the ground stop at 5:19 p.m. Pacific time on Saturday, April 11, because of rain and wind, and airport duty manager Russell Mackey said the halt was expected to last until about 6:45 p.m. (yahoo.com) By 6 p.m., the airport had logged 367 delays and 17 cancellations. Mackey said average delays were already nearing an hour, and he expected some waits to stretch to 160 minutes after flights resumed. (yahoo.com) The Federal Aviation Administration’s operations plan for April 11 listed San Francisco under wind and thunderstorm constraints and showed a ground delay program active into the night. The same advisory said another ground stop or delay program at San Francisco was probable after 3 p.m. that day. (fly.faa.gov) The weather hit an airport that was already running with less margin for error. San Francisco International closed Runway 1 Right on March 30 for a six-month repaving and taxiway project scheduled to last until October 2, 2026. (flysfo.com) During that project, Runway 1 Left is being used as a taxiway instead of for takeoffs and landings, and the airport said before the closure that fewer than 10% of flights would be delayed, with average delays under 30 minutes and the worst pressure around 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. (flysfo.com) The Federal Aviation Administration tightened operations again on March 31, cutting San Francisco arrivals from 54 planes an hour to 36 because of runway work and a safety rule that bars side-by-side landings when planes use parallel runways with less than 750 feet of separation. (abcnews.com) That change is expected to delay roughly one quarter of arriving flights by at least 30 minutes over the next six months, according to reporting based on the Federal Aviation Administration action. Saturday’s thunderstorms landed in the middle of that reduced-capacity stretch. (wtop.com) The National Weather Service had warned on Saturday that the Bay Area faced its highest thunderstorm risk beginning around 3 p.m., with the storm moving across the region through the afternoon and evening. That timing lined up with one of the airport’s busiest travel banks. (cbsnews.com) By late Saturday night, the Federal Aviation Administration airport-status page listed San Francisco as back on time, but airlines were still sorting aircraft, crews, and missed connections from a disruption that started with less than 90 minutes of stopped traffic. (faa.gov)