Coronavirus Update: Virus Travel Restrictions Turn San Francisco International Into Holiday Ghost Town
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Normally on a holiday weekend, San Francisco International would be overflowing with passengers, there would be lengthy delays at security checkpoints and there would be a bee hive of worker activity on the tarmac and loading gates.
But this was not a normal Easter weekend. The coronavirus outbreak has brought the San Francisco Bay Area to a near standstill. On Sunday, there was no waiting at the few check-in airline desks open. There were no lines at TSA. The food courts were shuttered. The clanking of a luggage's wheels echoed off the walls.
According to the TSA, only 93,645 travelers passed through checkpoints nationwide on Saturday, according to TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. That was a sharp decrease from the same Saturday last year, when 2,059,142 travelers were screened.
Traffic wasn't backed up at the arrival or departure pickup areas. No cabs, no ride share drivers.
Barrage collection carts were neatly stacked outside on the tarmac. Not a worker in sight.
Needed a cup of coffee or bite to eat? Good luck finding anything open.
United Airlines, the airport's largest carrier with the most daily flights with 290 flights per day before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, has reduced their daily flights to 50 per day.
San Jose International Airport spokesperson Demetria Machado said the travel at his facility has tumbled dramatically compared with March of 2019
"We're part of the national story of all airports," Machado said.
At San Francisco International, terminals have been consolidated and work forces reduced.
On March 22, approximately 15,000 passengers passed through SFO, either arriving or departing. That compares with about 79,000 passengers going through SFO on the same day in 2019. That was a drop of about 81 percent over a year.
"It's been a pretty serious dropoff," Chris Morgan, an airport duty manager at San Francisco International Airport, said at the time.
