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San Francisco International Airport (contact us for your
San Francisco limousine tour) is a major international Airport (contact us
for your San Francisco limousine tour) located 13 miles (21 km) south of
San Francisco, California, adjacent to the cities of Millbrae and San
Bruno in unincorporated San Mateo County. The Airport (contact us for your
San Francisco limousine tour) has flights to destinations throughout the
Americas and is a major gateway to Europe, Asia, and Australasia.
San Francisco is the largest Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
in the San Francisco Bay Area. As of 2005, San Francisco International
Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) is the
fourteenth largest in the United States[1] and the twenty-third largest
Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) in the
world,[2] in terms of passengers. It is a major hub of United Airlines,
and is expected to become the main hub of Virgin America when the airline
begins operations in 2006.
The Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) enjoys a
connection to an adjacent freeway, U.S. Route 101, as well as having its
own Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station adjoining one of its terminals.
Interstate 380 intersects Highway 101 north of the Airport (contact us for
your San Francisco limousine tour), providing further connections to the
region.
San Francisco Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
has numerous passenger amenities, including a wide range of food and drink
establishments, shopping, baggage storage, public showers, a medical
clinic, and assistance for lost or stranded travelers and military
personnel. The Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
hosts the Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, the San Francisco Airport
(contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) Commission Aviation
Library, and both permanent and temporary art exhibitions in several
places in the terminals. Public Wi-Fi is available throughout most of the
terminal area, provided by T-Mobile for a fee.[3]
History
The Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) was first
opened on May 7, 1927 on 150 acres (607,000 m²) of cow pasture. The land
was leased from prominent local landowner Ogden L. Mills, and was named
Mills Field Municipal Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour).
It remained Mills Field until 1931, when it was renamed San Francisco
Municipal Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour).
"Municipal" was replaced by "International" in 1955.
Starting in 1935, Pan American World Airways used the facility as the
terminal for its "China Clipper" flying boat service across the
Pacific Ocean. Domestic flights did not begin en masse, however, until
World War II, when Oakland International Airport (contact us for your San
Francisco limousine tour) was taken over by the military and its passenger
flights were moved to San Francisco.[4]
After the war, United Airlines took up residence at San Francisco Airport
(contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour), using the Pan Am
terminal for its flights to Hawaii and other U.S. cities. In 1954, the
Airport's (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) Central
Passenger Terminal opened for passenger service.[5] Jet service to San
Francisco Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) began
in the late 1950s: United built a large maintenance facility at San
Francisco for its new Douglas DC-8s. In July 1959 the first jetway bridge
installed in the United States. In 1974, a new terminal was built for
domestic flights, and the CPT became an international terminal (known
today as Terminal 2).
During the economic boom of the 1990s and the dot-com boom, San Francisco
Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) became the 6th
busiest international Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
in the world. However, since 2001, when the economic boom times ended, San
Francisco Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) has
fallen back out of the top twenty.[2]
San Francisco Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
has expanded continuously through the decades. Most recently, a new $1
billion international terminal opened in December 2000, replacing Terminal
2 as the international terminal.[5] This terminal contains a world-class
aviation library and museum.[6] An extension of the Bay Area Rapid Transit
system to the Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
opened on June 22, 2003, allowing passengers to board trains directly at
the Airport's (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
international terminal bound for San Francisco or points in the East
Bay.[7] BART trains also offer a quick trip to the nearby Millbrae
Station, where passengers can board Caltrain commuter rail trains bound
for San Jose and the Peninsula and SamTrans bus service bound for the
Peninsula. In 2003, the AirTrain shuttle system opened, conveying
passengers between terminals, parking lots, the BART station, and the
rental car center on small automatic trains.
San Francisco International Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
at night It is not uncommon for San Francisco Airport (contact us for your
San Francisco limousine tour) to experience significant delays in adverse
weather, when only one of the Airport's (contact us for your San Francisco
limousine tour) four runways can be used a time. Airport (contact us for
your San Francisco limousine tour) planners have floated proposals to
extend the Airport's (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
runways further into San Francisco Bay in order to accommodate the next
generation of super-jumbo aircraft. In order to expand further into the
bay, the Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) would
be required by law to restore bay land elsewhere in the Bay Area to offset
the fill. Such proposals have nevertheless met resistance with
environmental groups, fearing damage to the habitat of animals living near
the Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) and bay
water quality.
As such, San Francisco Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
suffers from loss of service as many airlines, especially low-cost
carriers such as Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways, and ATA Airlines
increasingly shift service to the other two major Bay Area Airports
(contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour), Oakland and San Jose,
which continue to expand for the time being. However, San Francisco
Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour) has superior
land connections compared to Oakland and San Jose, being directly
connected to U.S. Route 101, Interstate 380, and the BART system.
However, recovery at San Francisco Airport (contact us for your San
Francisco limousine tour) has been evident. Icelandair commenced San
Francisco-Reykjavík service on May 18, 2005, and Spirit Airlines began
daily service to Detroit on May 25, 2006. In addition, Qantas began
service from Sydney in March 2006, and began service to Vancouver on June
14, 2006. United Airlines will expand service to Seoul from seasonal to
year-round in October 2006, and, starting April 1, 2007, reinstate
non-stop service to Taipei and add more flights to Hong Kong.[8] United
Airlines has also applied for flights from San Francisco Airport (contact
us for your San Francisco limousine tour) to Guangzhou, China.[9] In
addition, San Francisco Airport (contact us for your San Francisco limousine tour)
will be the base of operations for Virgin America when the airline begins
operations in late 2006.
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