San Francisco Airport is Heartless

David J. Danto

Travel thoughts in my own, personal opinion

eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD on

Sorry, Mr. Bennett – San Francisco Airport Is Heartless September 2026

Last week, I found myself needing to take a two-day business trip to San Francisco. The arrival was uncomfortable, but the return was miserable. So rather than tell this story chronologically, let’s start with the grand finale and work our way backward.

I came home on one of United’s Friday midday nonstops from San Francisco to Newark. If you’ve flown that route often enough, you know exactly what kind of flight I mean.

This is the modern descendant of the old premium transcontinental services – flights full of people commuting coast to coast, heading home for the weekend, going to New York for a few days, or simply spending enough time in airplanes that they’ve developed very strong opinions about…well…everything.

It is, essentially, the Type-A Shuttle.

And I say that as someone who freely admits that I’m one of them.

I’m a United Million Miler. I’ve been flying long enough to know some of the little tricks that frequent travelers accumulate over the years. I know where the hidden button is that lifts the aisle-seat armrest. I know how to get my rollaboard positioned properly in the overhead bin. I know that if I board early enough, I can usually put my jacket on top of the bag instead of spending six hours wearing it, sitting on it or stuffing it someplace where it emerges looking like it was attacked by a bear.

These aren’t exactly superpowers. They’re just the little bits of knowledge you pick up after spending far too much of your life inside metal tubes.

But put too many people who possess that same knowledge – and that same sense of entitlement – onto the same airplane, and something strange happens.

Courtesy disappears.

Being a Million Miler on United nowadays doesn’t exactly make you royalty, either. Maybe it gets you to number 27 on an upgrade list for the one remaining seat. But on a Friday transcon from San Francisco to Newark, I’m surrounded by enough Global Services members, corporate warriors and other lifetime frequent flyers that I might as well be carrying a Group 47 boarding pass.

I am merely another Type A in the can.

And the personalities reveal themselves almost immediately.

First comes the serial recliner.

I have never understood people who fully recline an economy seat the moment the airplane leaves the ground. Yes, I understand that the button is there. Yes, technically the seat reclines. But the person behind you already has approximately the same amount of personal space as a veal calf.

I simply don’t do it.

On a six-hour flight, I’ll generally leave my seat upright because there is another human being behind me, and I possess at least a modest amount of empathy and human decency.

The serial recliner sees things differently.

The wheels leave the runway and WHAM – the seat flies backward, the IFE system moves toward your chest and whatever drink, laptop or snack you were foolish enough to be holding suddenly becomes part of your wardrobe.

And it stays there.

The seat only returns upright after a flight attendant has made the third announcement before landing and finally comes over personally to explain that, yes, the rules actually apply to this passenger too.

When somebody does this to me, I may recline my own seat slightly just so I can breathe again. But I try not to pass the stupidity all the way through the aircraft like some giant airborne chain reaction.

Then there is the aisle territorialist.

I travel with a fairly heavy cloth shoulder bag in addition to my rollaboard. The shoulder bag is heavy enough that, when it’s time to leave the airplane, I need to stack it on top of the rollaboard and hook it around the extended handle. Otherwise, it’s simply too heavy to carry off the plane.

So when the seatbelt light goes off after landing, I’ll sometimes pull the rollaboard down into the aisle and begin assembling my little luggage train.

On an ordinary flight, this is unremarkable.

On the Type-A Shuttle, the person across the aisle looks at me as though I have annexed Poland.

Apparently the aisle was hers.

Not eventually.

Not when the door opens.

Immediately.

My placing a suitcase there for 45 seconds has somehow violated an international treaty granting her exclusive control of the space between rows 10 and 11.

That is what happens when an airplane fills up with people who all believe they are the most experienced traveler onboard.

And these flights are full. Not “pretty crowded.” Not airline-speak (lying) full. Actual full. Standbys waiting. Every seat occupied and every inch of overhead space spoken for.

United runs plenty of flights between San Francisco and Newark, but judging from the demand I keep seeing, perhaps the real question is whether some of them ought to be larger aircraft.

Of course, the Type-A Shuttle was only the final indignity. Before I could even board it, San Francisco International Airport had already spent a couple of hours testing my patience.

SFO is, in many ways, a very good airport. It has interesting architecture, wonderful exhibits and a sense of place that many airports completely lack.

But parts of the experience feel as if somebody took something that worked perfectly well and decided passengers were getting through it much too easily.

There used to be a moving walkway from the F gates to security – something that made the long walk much more civilized. Alongside it were rotating museum exhibits. If you had time, you could stroll through and look at whatever happened to be on display. If you didn’t, you could hop on the moving walkway and get where you were going.

It was pleasant. So naturally, it had to go.

The area has seemingly been under construction forever, and now you simply walk the distance yourself.

I understand construction. I understand airports have to change.

What I don’t understand is taking away something useful and replacing it with so much walking that they had to paint a permanent sign on the wall reassuring you not to worry because you are “halfway there.”

At Newark, when passenger-friendly moving walkways disappeared, at least there was usually a greed-induced revenue opportunity occupying the space afterward. Somebody had found a way to sell you a $17 sandwich and/or an $8 bottle of ‘special’ water where the moving walkway used to be.

At SFO, we don’t even get that satisfaction. They just make you walk.

Then there are the metal water bottles at all the concessions.

San Francisco, in its admirable desire to protect the planet, has apparently decided that travelers should not be trusted with purchasing the same plastic bottles of water available at every other airport on Earth.

Fine. I understand the intent.

But airports are unique environments. Everything you carry needs to be compact, lightweight and, ideally, resealable.

Metal containers are NEVER the best answer.

And the insanity becomes even clearer when you decide you want something other than water.

Say, a soda.

The soda comes in a can.

Wonderful.

Now please explain how I’m supposed to put an opened can of soda into my carry-on bag, walk through the terminal, board an airplane and place it in a seat pocket without eventually wearing it.

My solution was one of those wonderfully absurd travel moments that makes you wonder whether anyone designing these policies has ever actually traveled.

I bought an extra resealable metal bottle of water. I emptied the water into a sink. Then I bought a can of soda. And I poured the soda into the now-empty water bottle.

That meant pouring what cost roughly the equivalent of a case of supermarket water bottles down the sink so I could bring an unfinished can of Coke onboard and sip it throughout the flight.

I had successfully defeated environmental policy through beverage laundering.

Somewhere in the afterlife, Tony Bennett was weeping.

And for an airport that takes so much care not to waste plastic, you would think you could purchase a grab-and-go sandwich that did not appear to waste gallons of oil-based condiments by slathering them all over it.

I was unable to find a prepared sandwich at any of the stores that didn’t already have some combination of mayonnaise-Dijon-aioli-pesto-glop spread on so heavily that it was coating the edges of the package. The package, by the way, was plastic – so much for the bottles.

Apparently, having a little box of mustard and mayo packets available for customers who actually want that stuff – and might prefer to add it themselves while dealing with a sandwich from an airline seat – was too complicated a concept for the metal-bottle-heads in charge.

Somewhere in the afterlife, Tony Bennett was probably weeping a little harder.

And now we can rewind the clock two days, because the airport had actually started this relationship the moment I arrived.

If you need a rideshare car once you land at SFO, you don’t just collect your suitcase, walk outside and get into the car. That would be too easy for a place that has decided metal bottles are the answer to air travel.

Instead, you begin an expedition.

Once you reclaim your checked bags, down you go to the sublevel. Then you have to take a moving walkway toward the garage.

(Pausing here to note that this particular moving walkway hasn’t been removed…it just doesn’t work.

Also pausing to note that the ubiquitous luggage carts you could have paid for before heading down to begin this journey aren’t allowed onto the walkway, something enforced by large stanchions that nobody bothered to warn you about when they were happy to take your money for the cart.)

Then you make your way across to the parking garage, find the correct elevator and go up to the fifth floor, where the designated rideshare pickup area awaits you on the garage roof.

Only once you’ve completed that migration can you confidently summon the car, because predicting exactly how long it will take to get from baggage claim to the pickup zone requires skills normally associated with NASA mission planning.

I understand why airports want rideshare vehicles away from the terminal curb. Traffic congestion is real. But solving the airport’s traffic problem by transferring the inconvenience to a passenger dragging bags and/or demonstration kit is not exactly customer-centered design.

And that, I think, is the common thread through this whole trip.

San Francisco Airport does many things beautifully. It has interesting architecture, terrific exhibits and a sense of place that many airports completely lack. But every now and then, it feels as if somebody makes a decision in the abstract without ever putting themselves in the shoes of an actual traveler.

Can’t have that moving walkway.

Can’t have that bottle.

Can’t have a sandwich that isn’t leaking out of its wrapper.

Can’t pick up your rideshare here.

Walk farther.

Carry more.

Figure it out.

And when you’ve finally figured all of that out, climb aboard the Friday transcon with 150 other people who have also figured everything out – and are convinced they figured it out before you did.

Tony Bennett famously left his heart in San Francisco.

After my latest trip through SFO, I’m beginning to wonder whether the airport – and some of its self-important travelers – misplaced theirs somewhere during the latest remodel.

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This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions.

All image and links provided above as reference under prevailing fair use statutes.

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As always, feel free to write and comment, question or disagree. Hearing from the traveling community is always a highlight for me. Thanks!