New tech may quiet SFO noise

Flying with a greater level of precision means aircraft will be able to take alternative approaches to the runway, including flying over the Bay more often, to further distance themselves from Foster City while descending.

“[GBAS] allows procedures that could include higher elevation before descending to the airport, more offset over the Bay, curved approaches and it could even allow an aircraft to land at a touchdown point further down our runway, which would also help local communities in the landing pattern,” Yakel said. “And nighttime procedures are high up on the priority list in terms of what we want to implement first.”

Mayor Sam Hindi described the technology as a game changer for Foster City, especially its ability to allow for a dual offset approach for landings, meaning two airplanes can fly over the Bay at once on their way to the airport rather than just one, as is the case with the current system.

“This is extremely important for Foster City. There’s a lot of hope in GBAS,” Hindi said. “The most critical for us is the dual offset approach not currently available with the current system. That’s where relief for Foster City will come.”

Yakel said SFO is spending $10 million to implement the system, but it wouldn’t be up and running for at least three to five years. The first step is to overlay all existing procedures with GBAS, which is expected to be in place in about 12 months, he said, and then comes the Federal Aviation Administration’s evaluation process.

“There’s about a half a dozen other airports around the U.S., Seattle included, that are also pursuing this technology in the hope that this will become the future standard,” Yakel said.

Yakel’s presentation, which he’s been delivering to other Peninsula cities in recent months, largely focused on plans for future development at the airport.

The plans are meant to enhance the passenger experience and traffic circulation around the airport as annual passenger counts are expected to rise from 58 million to 71 million in the next decade.

Current projects include the recently completed long-term parking extension near the Interstate 380 interchange, which can now accommodate 3,500 additional cars, and the 350-room Hyatt Hotel along Highway 101, which will open in July. A new terminal is also being constructed and will open in phases starting this summer.

Future projects include the reconfiguration of the international terminal so that there’s one single centralized security checkpoint in the middle of the main hall, allowing passengers to travel from concourse to concourse without exiting the security area. The airport is also planning to construct an additional boarding area adjacent to the airport BART station, which would add more gates near the international terminal, and rebuild the parking garage at the center of the airport to accommodate commercial ground transportation.

“We’ll make this a pickup and dropoff area to alleviate congestion on the roadways,” Yakel said, adding that rideshare companies such as Uber and Lyft now account for 80 percent of commercial ground transportation at the airport, and are collectively responsible for 27,000 pickups and dropoffs per day. “We hear from our customers on a regular basis about the difficulty of getting to and from terminals.”

The goal is to have an environmental impact report for those projects prepared by mid-2020 with construction occurring between 2020 and 2035.

But Yakel stressed that future plans do not include changes to the airport’s property footprint, flight paths nor runway configurations or capacity.

The growing number of passengers are expected to come not in additional planes but in increasingly bigger planes, Yakel said.

“For years we’ve been pushing airlines to grow by using larger aircraft rather than additional aircraft and we’ve been successful with that,” he said, adding that passenger counts have grown 36 percent since 2011, but the number of flights has only grown by 14 percent. At that time, the average aircraft held 134 passengers while today it holds 158 passengers. “We’ll continue that push.”

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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