SFO flights delayed nearly 3 hours as wind slows arrivals

Flights into San Francisco International Airport were delayed for nearly three hours Thursday afternoon after strong winds reduced the number of planes the airport could safely land, federal officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground delay for SFO that will last until 12:59 a.m. Friday, holding some inbound flights at their departure airports because of wind.

The FAA said flights bound for San Francisco were delayed an average of 164 minutes.

An advisory listed the maximum assigned delay at 598 minutes, or nearly 10 hours. The advisory said the airport was expected to shift runway operations later Thursday afternoon as winds changed.

Easterly winds were especially disruptive for SFO because they can force the airport out of its normal runway configuration, reducing the number of flights it can land each hour. The setup was tied to the upper-level low that brought rain to the Bay Area on Wednesday night.

The program applied to SFO-bound flights from across the contiguous United States, as well as Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

Ground delay programs are issued when the FAA expects more flights to arrive than an airport can safely handle. The agency cited wind as the reason for Thursday’s delays and reduced SFO’s arrival rate to 25 planes per hour.

United, SFO’s dominant carrier, accounted for the largest share of reported delays, according to FlightAware. SkyWest, Southwest, Delta and American were also among the airlines with notable disruptions, while SkyWest reported the highest number of cancellations.

The delays affected travelers across the country because flights headed to SFO were being held before takeoff, rather than circling near the Bay Area. That approach helps reduce congestion in the air but can ripple through airline schedules, especially when delays stretch into the evening.

SFO is particularly vulnerable to weather-related slowdowns because wind, low clouds and runway configuration can quickly reduce the number of arrivals the airport can handle.

The wind delays hit while SFO was already operating with reduced landing capacity because of a major runway repaving project and new federal safety restrictions on arrivals. Those changes reduced SFO’s maximum arrival rate from 54 flights per hour to 36, according to airport officials.

Greg Porter contributed to this report.