Dense Fog Closes Bay Area Airports

Passengers stranded by fog had blankets and pillows to soften the hard terminal floor at San Francisco International Airport, but the thing they really wanted--a flight home--was harder to come by.

All three area airports--San Francisco, San Jose International and Oakland International--suffered through major delays and cancellations starting late Sunday into Monday morning. The fog returned Monday night, causing one-hour delays in San Francisco, but none in Oakland or San Jose.

“This is the first severe fog pattern of the season, and it’s likely to be with us at least through midweek,” said forecaster Mike Pechner of Golden West Meteorology. The upside, he said, would be balmy temperatures as high as the 70s along the coast.

The National Weather Service concurred, predicting locally dense fog around the area today and Wednesday.

As visibility dropped to 100 feet or less late Sunday and early Monday, airlines were forced to cancel or divert scores of flights, leaving frustrated travelers either stranded at airports or deposited states away from their destinations.

“Our luggage is somewhere--I don’t have it,” said Douglas Cave, who was stranded at Denver International Airport when his flight to San Francisco was diverted. “And then we find out that the next flight out is a Frontier Airlines flight tomorrow at noon, and there are only two seats left on that.

“We’re essentially . . . out of luck for today and tomorrow, and we may not actually get a flight out of there until the 30th.”

San Francisco was a great place to be Monday when the fog cleared for a while during the day.

“The weather has dramatically improved. It’s a beautiful, clear, sunny day,” Ron Wilson, a San Francisco International spokesman, said Monday afternoon.

The fog, Wilson said, moved in about 8 p.m. Sunday and did not really clear until about 1:30 p.m. Monday.

By nightfall Monday, the fog began creeping back in, threatening more cancellations, diversions and delays stretching through the night and into today.

A law on the maximum number of hours a crew can fly without rest added to the stranded travelers’ woes.

“When the crews finally did get their planes here, they were out of time, so the airlines had to try to find substitute crews. That’s difficult when so many crews were needed,” Wilson said.

Many ticket-holders were sent home and told to try again today. Wilson said that for those still stranded overnight, the airport was arranging for a food cart and for airlines to contribute pillows and blankets.

“They’ll still have to deal with the hard floor, but it won’t be quite as bad,” he said.

As the visibility dropped, passengers lined up for more than 1,000 feet at one ticket counter in San Francisco.

About 30 airliners were forced to make unscheduled landings at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, stranding about 3,100 United Airlines passengers, among others. That created a booming business for Reno cab companies and car rental agencies.

The city’s two largest cab companies sent about 50 cabs to the Bay area. The one-way fare to San Francisco, 220 miles away, is about $360.