A winter storm on the East Coast can be blamed for about half of the cancellations. The other half is because of issues here at home. "The remainder are because of our own local weather, mostly cancellations on short haul flights up and down the West Coast because of our weather conditions and it's not just rain here, but the biggest driver for us today is wind. It is because the winds are blowing out of a completely different direction than they normally do. They are coming out of the south and rule number one in aviation is you always take off and land into the wind and because that wind is coming from exact opposite direction, we have had to revise our runway configurations and use a less efficient configuration that causes the delays we are seeing today," SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel said.
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FAA says average delays are four hours and eight minutes for flights into SFO.
The agency posted this message: "Due to WEATHER / WIND, there is a Traffic Management Program in effect for traffic arriving to San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, Calif. This is causing some arriving flights to be delayed an average of 4 hours and 8 minutes. To see if you may be affected, select your departure airport and check "Delays by Destination".
Right now, we are watching a storm that ranks a "one" on our Storm Impact Scale, but it's expected to gain strength throughout the week.
RELATED: The ABC7 News Storm Impact Scale explained
Yakel does think we have seen the bulk of the cancellations for the day. However, with more rain and wind forecast for Thursday, issues at the airport may persist. The recommendation is to sign up for airline alerts on your smartphone.
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Click here to see if you may be affected, select your departure airport and check "Delays by Destination".
Click here to download the free ABC7 News App to track the storm where you live. Make sure you enable push alerts for immediate notifications and severe weather alerts.
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