A “No Go” at SFO

When I arrived at San Francisco International Airport at nine o'clock yesterday morning, I knew I was going nowhere.

SFO is my "airport of choice" when I fly out of the San Francisco Bay Area. I can leave my car at home, take a stress-free ride on the airporter bus that runs every half hour from near my home twenty miles north of downtown San Francisco, and reach the airport in about an hour. Although Oakland International Airport is about as close, mileage-wise, and is smaller and less congested, I have to drive to get there, passing through what can be a huge traffic bottleneck along the East Shore of San Francisco Bay. (When I flew out of Oakland in March, traffic came to a complete stop on the freeway just north of downtown Oakland, forcing me to take a circuitous route along city streets to get to the airport).

But yesterday, I wasn't on the airporter bus to SFO; I was in my car, along with my wife, chauffeuring a friend (the "taxi driver" who normally drives us to the airporter bus terminal) out to the airport to catch a flight to LAX. The only place I was going that day was back home for the remainder of the holidays. Here's what I found was good, bad, and ugly at SFO:

• The "Good": Traffic through Marin County and down to SFO was reasonably light for a Tuesday morning. We sped down the San Francisco Peninsula reaching the airport in under an hour, a full 90 minutes before the scheduled take-off of our friend's flight. There was ample space right at the curb in front of Terminal 3 to drop her off. Because she had "Cabin Karma" and was flying First Class, she breezed through check-in and the security checkpoint well before I'd managed to park the car and enter the terminal. United Airlines gave my wife a pass allowing her to accompany our friend (who needed assistance) to the gate. So far, so good.
  
• The "Bad": Reaching the short-term parking area in the garage opposite Terminal 3 was difficult. I had to drive almost back to the freeway before doing a U-turn to catch the loop road returning to the terminal. Misleading signage led me to the entrance of the International Terminal garage, far from where I wanted to be. I took another pass around the road fronting the terminals, but couldn't find a safe way to cross several lanes of traffic and enter the garage. Finally, I headed to the arrival and baggage pickup areas on the lower level, drove completely around the edge of the terminal complex, and eventually made my way into the garage.
  
• The "Ugly": Terminal 2 (formerly known as the Central Terminal) had been shuttered since overseas flights which used to arrive and depart there moved to the more spacious International Terminal in December of 2000. "T2" is now undergoing renovation into a new terminal for domestic flights. The façade of the building has been torn open and the area in front of the terminal has been left in somewhat of a mess (thanks to the "Sisters of Perpetual Airport Re-Construction" who always seem to be in charge of such projects).
  
• More of the "Good": The parking gods smiled upon me. There were plenty of open spaces in the garage and I snagged one close to the tunnel that leads into Terminal 3. After the 9/11 attacks and the implementation of new security measures, finding a place to grab a bite to eat before passing through the security checkpoints in SFO's Terminal 3 was problematic for those taking passengers to, or picking passengers up, at the airport. Now there is a Peet's Coffee (and a Subway sandwich place) on the Terminal 3 mezzanine, so I was able to enjoy a latte and a chocolate croissant, read the New York Times, "tweet" stories from that paper, and check my e-mail on my iPhone, while waiting for my wife to return from gate 74 where our friend boarded her flight to Los Angeles.
  
• More of the "Bad": Coach passengers flying on United Airlines that morning had to stand in a long "Conga line" to check in, and then queue up in an even longer line, to clear security. (It wasn't clear to me whether additional security procedures were being implemented at SFO following the Christmas Day incident aboard the Amsterdam-Detroit flight and causing the backup, or if there were simply lots, and lots, and lots of folks flying that morning).
  
• More of the "Good": Skies were pretty clear at SFO by 9 a.m. and flights did not appear to be delayed by local weather even though there had been heavy ground fog in some parts of the San Francisco Bay Area earlier that morning. Our friend's flight left a minute earlier than scheduled and she reached LAX early.
  

Overall, it was a "good day" to fly. Not too "bad", and not "ugly" at all. But for me, it was one of my best days at SFO. I didn't have to go anywhere, except home, and I didn't have to catch a plane to get there.