Airport Chaos
SFO · San Francisco
San Francisco International Airport
FAA status updated 1 min ago
Right now
FAA
Ground delay program
The FAA is metering arrivals into SFO by assigning inbound flights a departure delay before they leave. That assigned delay is not the same thing as how late flights end up running.
- Average assigned delay
- 58 min
- Maximum assigned delay
- 2 hr 26 min
- FAA reason
- other
Weather
Good flying weather
VFR — clear enough to fly visually
Observed 5 min ago at 4:56 PM PT
Later today
Ground stop or delay program possible after 7 PM PT
FAA's own wording, from the Operations Plan advisory issued 4:35 PM PT.
What this means
The FAA is metering arrivals rather than stopping them, so flights are moving, just slower than scheduled.
Individual flights can still be delayed or cancelled when the airport looks fine. Check your airline for your actual flight.
This page refreshes itself about once a minute from WanderNerd's cached copy of the FAA feed, never from the FAA directly.
Usually at this time
77%
of SFO departures left on time on a typical Monday, across 21,961 flights. Monday evening is one of SFO's rougher stretches historically.
Historical departure punctuality from U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, June 2025 – May 2026. This is a separate measurement from anything above: the FAA's delay figures describe traffic-management actions taken today, and averaging the two together would produce a number that means nothing. A ground stop is still a ground stop on an airport's best weekday.
Flying out soon?
Sources
- FAA National Airspace System Status — last live update 5:00 PM PT
- FAA Operations Plan advisory — issued 4:35 PM PT
- NOAA Aviation Weather Center — observed 4:56 PM PT at KSFO
- Historical performance: U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Each source has its own clock; they do not share a timestamp. How the status is calculated.