SFO Flight Delays Ease as FAA Raises Arrivals, Runway Work Continues

If San Francisco International is anywhere in your itinerary between now and early October, plan for it to still be one of the least predictable major airports in the country, even though the numbers just got a bit better. SFO has spent this summer working through a squeeze from two directions at once: a six-month, $180 million repaving of Runway 1 Right that closed it from March 30 through an expected reopening around October 2 or 3, and a separate FAA safety restriction, imposed in late March, that banned simultaneous side-by-side landings on SFO's two closely spaced parallel runways, which sit just 750 feet apart. Together those two constraints cut the airport's clear-weather arrival capacity from a normal 54 planes an hour down to just 36, and the effect on schedules was significant. SFO went from roughly one in five arriving flights running 15 minutes or more late in 2025 to about one in three this summer, with June being especially rough and average per-flight delays climbing sharply compared to a year earlier. The FAA gave travelers some real relief this month, though it is only partial. On August 12, the agency rolled out a new staggered parallel landing procedure that keeps one aircraft offset from the other on the two close runways rather than banning simultaneous use outright, and that alone lifted the hourly arrival cap from 36 to 40 planes. The FAA has said it expects to push that further to 42 an hour by the end of August. SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel put it plainly: this step will not fully restore the rate the airport had when true side-by-side landings were allowed, but it is, in his words, a move in the right direction. The catch is that the staggered procedure only works in clear weather. When San Francisco's marine layer rolls in and ceilings drop, which happens often, especially in the morning, controllers have to revert to slower, single-file sequencing, and the higher arrival numbers evaporate for as long as the fog lasts. The real fix is still the runway itself. Once Runway 1 Right reopens around October 2 or 3, SFO regains a full working runway and the parallel-landing restriction becomes far less consequential, since the airport will have more room to spread arrivals across its full field again. Until then, the improved 40-to-42-per-hour rate is best treated as a ceiling on a good day, not a guarantee. So what should you actually do if you are booking or holding travel through SFO in the next six weeks? First, build real buffer into any connection that routes through San Francisco, particularly same-day international connections or a tight domestic-to-domestic transfer of 45 minutes or less; a single fogged-in morning can still push a 20-minute average delay into something much longer. Second, favor SFO flights scheduled for midday and afternoon over early morning departures and arrivals, since the marine layer that forces controllers back to reduced-rate sequencing is most persistent before late morning. Third, if you fly United frequently, keep an eye on its app specifically, since United operates SFO's largest hub schedule and has been the carrier most vocal about working with the FAA on operational fixes there this summer; its waivers and rebooking tools tend to reflect SFO-specific conditions before broader alerts do. If your trip has any flexibility and SFO delays would be costly, such as a cruise embarkation or a connecting international flight with no same-day backup, consider routing through Oakland or San Jose instead, both of which sit outside these restrictions and can serve as a practical Bay Area alternative for domestic itineraries. Finally, if your travel dates fall after October 3, you are likely booking into a genuinely better operating picture, since that is when the repaved runway is due back in service and the airport's baseline capacity returns; anything booked for late September should still be treated as summer-conditions travel, buffer and all. None of this means avoid SFO. It means treat the airport, through early October, the way you would treat any hub running below its normal capacity: build in slack, watch the app, and pick flight times that dodge the fog window whenever your schedule allows it. Sources Exclusive: SFO expects fewer delays after FAA partially reverses ban on parallel landings - Aviation Pros - https://www.aviationpros.com/airport-business/airport-infrastructure-operations/news/55396458/exclusive-sfo-expects-fewer-delays-after-faa-partially-reverses-ban-on-parallel-landings FAA Announces New Landing Procedure to Speed Up Arrivals at SFO - SFist - https://sfist.com/2026/08/12/faa-announces-new-landing-procedure-to-speed-up-arrivals-at-sfo/ SFO delays: FAA launches new staggered parallel landing procedure to speed up arrivals - ABC7 San Francisco - https://abc7news.com/post/sfo-delays-faa-launches-new-staggered-parallel-landing-procedure-speed-arrivals-san-francisco-international-airport/19668764/ FAA Raises SFO Arrival Cap. Will Delays Ease August 12? - Deep Arrival - https://deeparrival.com/news/faa-sfo-arrival-rate-increase-staggered-approaches-august-12-2026/ 1 in 3 SFO flights arrived late in June. Relief could be in sight - The Points Guy - https://thepointsguy.com/news/sfo-summer-flight-delays-united-says-relief-coming/ SFO is counting down the next 56 days - Yahoo Travel - https://travel.yahoo.com/news/articles/sfo-counting-down-next-56-120000894.html