Last week, we shared that SFO is the fifth worst airport in the U.S. for canceled flights, and the sixth worst airport for delayed ones.
Well, the bad news continues (sorry, SFO, and we do really like your airport art and your brigade of soft animals that we can pet to ease our travel stress): A new study says that San Francisco’s airport ranks fifth in the nation specifically for holiday travel, according to travel guide LocalsInsider.com. “Holiday travel” for this study includes Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
We all know holiday travel is iffy. So when we book a flight, we cross our fingers and hope for the best (and consider ways to kill time if we’re stuck on a layover). Ice coats the runways making takeoff and landing unsafe. Once in the air, snowfall can cause a problematic amount of ice to accumulate on the body of the aircraft. De-icing the plane can rob time from airlines trying desperately to get passengers parked in front of a fireplace in another state for their schnapps and stockings moment.
Of course, these snowy issues aren’t really a thing in San Francisco itself—but the fog and generally variable weather that time of year can certainly adversely affect visibility. So when the study looked at last year’s holiday flight data for 50 of the country’s busiest airports, it concluded that 23.1 percent of SFO’s flights over the holidays were delayed or canceled. Ouch. (In fact, a similar study found SFO was the very worst airport for weather delays specifically over that span.)
Here are the numbers:
Total canceled holiday flights: 2,770
Total delayed holiday flights: 43
Overall percentage of delayed/canceled holiday flights: 23.1
In case you’re dying to know, the airports that were worse than SFO are: Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (with 29.2 percent of delayed/canceled flights), Orlando International (25.8 percent), Chicago Midway International (25.2 percent) and Southwest Florida International (Fort Myers, with 23.3 percent). The best? Washington-Dulles with 11.4 percent delayed or canceled.
Could you increase your chances of success by hopping across the bay and flying out of Oakland’s airport? Yep! Only 19.1 percent of its flights were disrupted during the holidays last year, making it rank as 21st worst compared to SFO’s fifth worst. (Perhaps the fact that OAK’s flights mostly service relatively temperate arrival cities helps it in the rankings here.) Which makes us wonder why Oakland International Airport wants to add San Francisco to its name… it’s got a better rep!