When air traffic controllers switch to the Southeast plan, simultaneous operations on parallel runways is forbidden, which cuts the airport's arrivals capacity in half– from 60 down to 30 or 38 per hour, depending on the severity of conditions. All planes must land in single file, which causes delays when there are 60 planes scheduled to land, but air traffic control only allows 35. And when planes arrive late, it's likely that they will also depart late. Don't miss! Get $200 for booking a trip on new Upside site! Seriously! During rainy weather, SFO switches to the Southeast plan, which slows down operations (Illustration provided by SFO. Yes, we know about the "SJO" mistake designers on this image) If you live in San Francisco, you can tell when planes switch to the Southeast Plan because some arriving aircraft whistle and moan as they descend through the clouds over the city as they approach SFO. What can you do to avoid this? Fly early during storm season. Before 9 a. m., arrival volume at SFO is below 30 per hour.
S weather stations for the period of time from 1980 to 2010. The humidity and wind speed information were calculated from data from 15, 000 worldwide stations for the period of time from 1980 to 2010.