SFO is my hometown airport, and, like the many of us who have flown there, the runway configuration is far from ideal. Thanks to advances in technology, the effects of this configuration have been reduced, as SFO is a master at perfectly timed parallel take offs, and landings.
The still prominent issue with this configuration, is that when weather becomes poor, and visability is reduced, parallel landings can no longer occur on 28L and 28R, the primary landing runways. As a result, the airport gets plagued with delays in upwards of 4 hours or so, as only one aircraft can land at a time.
For years, the idea of adding runways to SFO has been something that has never left the proposal stage. There are various reasons for this but, among them are the environmental impacts of land fill required to support a new runway, (something thatâs very important to conservationists in this area, as at one point, the Bay Area was planned to be filled in.)
So, my proposal, taking all mentioned above into consideration includes: a new 7,300 ft runway, separated far enough from 28L to allow for parallel landings in poor conditions. It would also allow for new regular procedures, such as using the new runway in tandem with 28R for landings, freeing 28L for departures. The new runway would use in upwards of 80% of existing land, and would see the private jet parking, along with the overnight stands/hangar offset to the north to accommodate the new runway.
Current Config:
Proposed Config: