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:''SFO redirects here. For other uses of SFO, see SFO (disambiguation) .'' :''KSFO redirects here. For the radio station, see KSFO (AM) '' San Francisco International Airport is located 13 miles (21 km) south of San Francisco, California , adjacent to the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno in Unincorporated San Mateo County . The airport has flights to destinations throughout the Americas and is a major gateway to Europe , Asia , and Australasia . San Francisco is the largest airport in the , and is expected to become the main hub of Virgin America when the airline begins operations in 2006 . The airport enjoys a connection to an adjacent freeway, U.S. Route 101 , as well as having its own Bay Area Rapid Transit Station adjoining one of its terminals. Interstate 380 intersects Highway 101 north of the airport, providing further connections to the region. SFO has numerous passenger amenities, including a wide range of food and drink establishments, shopping, baggage storage, public showers, a medical clinic, and assistance for lost or stranded travelers and military personnel. The airport hosts the Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum , the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library , and both permanent and temporary art exhibitions in several places in the terminals. Public Wi-Fi is available throughout most of the terminal area, provided by T-Mobile for a fee. HISTORY The airport was first opened on May 7 , 1927 on 150 acres (607,000 m²) of cow pasture. The land was leased from prominent local landowner Ogden L. Mills , and was named Mills Field Municipal Airport. It remained Mills Field until 1931 when it was renamed San Francisco Municipal Airport. "Municipal" was replaced by "International" in 1955 . Starting in 1935 , Pan American World Airways used the facility as the terminal for its " China Clipper " Flying Boat service across the Pacific Ocean . Domestic flights did not begin ''en masse'' until World War II , when Oakland International Airport was taken over by the military and its passenger flights were moved to San Francisco. After the war, s. In 1974 , a new terminal was built for domestic flights, and the CPT became an international terminal (known today as Terminal 2). During the economic boom of the 1990s and the Dot Com boom, SFO became the 6th busiest international airport in the world. However, since 2001 when the economic boom times ended, SFO has fallen back out of the top twenty. SFO has expanded continuously through the decades. Most recently, a new $1 billion international terminal opened in December 2000, replacing Terminal 2 as the international terminal. This terminal contains a world-class aviation library and museum ]]It is not uncommon for SFO to experience significant delays in adverse weather, when only one of the airport's four runways can be used a time. Airport planners have floated proposals to extend the airport's runways further into San Francisco Bay in order to accommodate the next generation of super-jumbo aircraft. In order to expand further into the bay, the airport would be required by law to restore bayland elsewhere in the Bay Area to offset the fill. Such proposals have nevertheless met resistance among environmental groups, fearing damage to the habitat of animals living near the airport and bay water quality. As such, San Francisco International Airport will probably remain popular but stagnant while its two neighbor airports ( Oakland International Airport in Oakland and San Jose International Airport in San Jose ) will continue to grow for the time being. Ultimately, these other airports will have their growth restricted by the lack of usable runways. San Francisco International currently has four runways available for commercial aircraft use, but Oakland only has one commercial runway and San Jose has two. San Francisco International can accommodate up to 60 arriving aircraft an hour, whereas both San Jose and Oakland can only handle 30 aircraft per hour. Another plus for San Francisco is, unlike Oakland and San Jose, San Francisco enjoys the advantage of being directly connected to its adjacent freeway, U.S. Route 101 , as well as to The BART System . San Jose, however, is quite close to both SR 87 and US101. Recovery at SFO has been slow but evident. Icelandair commenced San Francisco-Reykjavik service on May 18 , 2005 , and United Airlines applied for flights from SFO to Guangzhou , China . In addition, Qantas Airways began service from Sydney in March 2006, and will begin service to Vancouver in June, 2006. Also, SFO will be the base operations for Virgin America when the airline begins operations in late 2006. AIRCRAFT NOISE ABATEMENT The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) Aircraft Noise Abatement Office seeks to:
SFO was one of the first airports to implement a Fly Quiet Program which grades individual air carriers on their performance on noise abatement procedures while flying in and out of SFO. The Jon C. Long Fly Quiet Program is an initiative implemented by the Aircraft Noise Abatement Office to encourage individual airlines to operate as quietly as possible at SFO. The program promotes a participatory approach in complying with the noise abatement procedures. As part of the Program Staff generates a Fly Quiet Report which provides airlines “scores” on the following elements:
SFO was one of the first U.S. airports to conduct a residential sound abatement retrofitting program. Established by the Federal Aviation Administration in the early 1980s, this program evaluated the cost effectiveness of reducing interior sound levels for homes in the vicinity of the airport, or more partiuclarly homes within the 65 CNEL noise contour surface. The program made use of a noise Computer Model to predict improvement in specific residential interiors for a variety of different noise control strategies. This pilot program was conducted for a neighborhood in the city of South San Francisco , and success was achieved in all of the homes analyzed. The construction costs turned out to be modest, and the post-construction interior sound level tests confirmed the model predictions for noise abatement. To date over $120,000,000 has been spent at SFO to insulate in excess of 10,000 homes. AIRCRAFT INCIDENTS On December 24 th, 1964 , Flying Tiger Line Flight 282 , headed for New York City , crashed in the hills west of the airport, killing all 3 crewmembers aboard. On to dump fuel in order to reduce weight for an emergency landing. Emergency services were deployed at the airport, and the plane returned and landed on runway 28R, using only the landing gear on one side of the aircraft. As the gear partially collapsed, the aircraft skidded into the dirt area next to the runway and came to a stop, but there was no fire. The aircraft was successfully evacuated using emergency slides. There were no fatalities among the 218 passengers and crew aboard, but there were a number of injuries, some serious. An investigation determined the cause of the accident to be erroneous information from the flight dispatcher to the crew regarding weight and runway length. On December 7, 1987, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 , bound from Los Angeles International Airport to San Francisco, was cruising above the central California coast when a disgruntled USAir employee aboard the plane shot his ex-supervisor, both pilots and then himself, causing the airplane to crash near the town of Cayucos . All 43 aboard perished. On January 31 , 2000 , Alaska Airlines Flight 261 , which was headed on a Puerto Vallarta -San Francisco- Seattle-Tacoma route, crashed into the Pacific Ocean near LAX , killing everyone on board. United Airlines Flight 93 , one of the four hijacked airplanes involved in the September 11, 2001 Attacks , was headed to San Francisco from Newark International Airport . Many flights involving SFO had previously been targeted by Project Bojinka , an Al-Qaeda plot, in 1995 . TERMINALS Terminal 1 Formerly known as ''South Terminal,'' Terminal 1 consists of ''Boarding Area B'' and ''Boarding Area C''. Rotunda A was closed on Dec. 1, 2005 and will be demolished upon completion of Terminal 2 renovation. Removing this concourse will free up space for new gates in the International Terminal A's east-facing side. On Dec. 1, US Airways and Midwest Airlines vacated their gates in Rotunda A to move in with America West in Boarding Area B, and the wing is now closed for demolition. Rotunda A
Boarding Area B (gates 20-36)
Boarding Area C (gates 40-48)
Terminal 2 Terminal 2 opened in 1954 . Originally known as the ''Central Terminal,'' in 1974 it became known as the ''International Terminal.'' Boarding Area D was also here. This included Gates 49-59. However, when the current international terminal opened in 2000, Terminal 2 was closed; it is currently undergoing indefinite renovation. The terminal will replace Rotunda A once that renovation is complete. It currently serves as a walkway between Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. According to airport officials it is planned that Virgin America would open operations here when they start service. SFO Medical Clinic is located on the Arrivals/Baggage Claim level (lower level). Terminal 3 Formerly known as ''North Terminal,'' Terminal 3 is made up of ''Boarding Area E'' and ''Boarding Area F''. This side of the airport is dominated by United Airlines and American Airlines , chiefly by United. Boarding Area E (gates 60-67) - American Airlines
Boarding Area F (gates 68-90) - United Airlines ''Note:'' All United domestic flights depart from Terminal 3 Boarding Area F and all United international flights depart and arrive from the International Terminal Boarding Area G.
International Terminal SFO's international terminal, which opened in December 2000, is the largest international terminal in North America , and the largest building in the world built on Base Isolator s to protect against Earthquake s. It replaced Terminal 2, which served as SFO's international terminal until 2000. The boarding area has two levels, with shops and restaurants on the upper level and departure lounges on the lower level. Instead of the customary fast-food chains found at many other airports across the country, all restaurants in SFO's International Terminal are leading restaurants in the Bay Area that have opened up fast-food versions of their establishments. For lack of space, the terminal was constructed ''on top of'' the airport's main access road at enormous expense; the advantage of this location was that it completed a continuous "ring" of terminals around the airport's main loading/unloading loop. The disadvantage was that the terminal required its own elaborate set of ramps to connect it with Highway 101. The design of the international terminal was awarded (after an architectural design competition) to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill , Del Campo & Maru Architects, Michael Willis Associates (Main terminal), Hellmuth, Obata And Kassabaum (Boarding Area G) & Gerson/Overstreet Architects (Boarding Area A). Boarding Area A (gates 1-12)
Boarding Area G (gates 91-102) (north side, opposite Boarding Area A, next to Boarding Area F)
BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT STATION San Francisco International Airport is served by the Dublin/Pleasanton Line (sometimes called the Blue Line, because it is represented in blue on BART maps). The airport's BART station is located on level 3 next to Parking Garage G. There are two entrances and exits - one on level 3, adjacent to the grand foyer off the north side of the International Terminal; and the other is a level up at the station for the AirTrain airport People Mover . The BART station is configured as a Terminal Station . Trains enter from an elevated Wye from the west side of Highway 101. There are three tracks and corresponding Bay Platforms . BART traffic to and from SFO, even during peak hours, has not been as great as was anticipated when construction commenced, so only the two outer tracks are currently used - one for Milbrae-bound trains and the other for San Francisco/East Bay-bound trains. The middle track will be put into service at such time as BART traffic to and from the airport necessitates it. BIBLIOGRAPHY
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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