New runway rules at San Francisco Airport airport to drastically reduce delays

Travelers at San Francisco International Airport frustrated by flight delays will finally see some relief after the federal government signed off on new regulations that will allow for more frequent plane landings.

The Federal Aviation Administration said that arrivals into SFO should rise from 36 planes per hour to 40 per hour by Aug. 12, increasing again to 42 landings per hour by the end of the month, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

In March, the FAA imposed new safety restrictions on landings that led to predictions that a quarter of flights could be delayed.

The new rule prohibited airplanes from doing side-by-side landings on the east-to-west runways, even with the other aircraft in sight. Instead, pilots were ordered take a staggered approach to landing.

But next Wednesday, the FAA will being to allow staggered parallel landings, “ensuring safety by keeping one airplane ahead of the other.” If the weather reduces visibility, however, all parallel landings will still be prohibited.

“While this will not fully restore the arrival rate we had when true side-by-side landings were permitted, this is nonetheless a step in the right direction,” said airport spokesperson Doug Yakel.

The new flight restrictions coincide with a construction project that will take two runways out of commission for six months, KRON4 reported. Those runways closed March and won’t reopen until October, the airport announced previously.

After the new FAA rules were imposed, more than a third of flights were delayed by 15 minutes or more, compared with about one-fifth in 2025, Yakel told the Chronicle.

According to a flight-tracking website Flightly, around 30% to 40% flights at San Francisco airport were delayed as of Saturday, landing or departing almost 20 minutes late.

Side-by-side landings had been permitted at the airport in good weather, but recent aviation-safety issues have come under increased scrutiny.

Most recently, a fatal plane crash took place at LaGuardia Airport in New York airport earlier this year.