Shopping desert at San Francisco International

San Francisco is a destination I frequently fly to for my job. When I took off there last time, there was no delay and in fact, when you take off from San Francisco International (IATA: SFO) in 98% of the times your flight is on time according to Flightstats.com. The Northern Californian airport was also recently rated best US airport. Despite all that, there will still be the odd occasion when your flight actually is delayed (my colleagues who flew back with BA the next day were in fact delayed for about 2 hours), plus, with international flights it is recommended to get to the airport 2 hours prior to departure which often means you have plenty of time to kill before the boarding announcement.

So, what’s there to do at San Francisco International? Well, according to the airports own statistics, the terminal is the largest international terminal by square footage in North America. There are two different boarding areas, A and G with most non-US carrier flights departing from area A. Whilst the size of the terminal is definitely adding to your relaxation, you would also expect plenty of shopping opportunities (even more so with the current weak dollar). No such luck - there are hardly any! For example, if you hoped to buy that last minute Apple iPod for your friend at home, you will be disappointed as none can be found at SFO. So, better get your shopping done before you get to the airport. But what can you then do at the airport? Here are my top 5:

1. Sit at the North side of the terminal and watch the air traffic
2. Search the few stores for that one Vitamin Water flavour you haven’t tasted yet
3. Count the number of public announcements that were generated with a computer voice
4. Connect online and download your latest emails (connect through T-Online for US$6/hour or use your companies connection software)
5. DeleteUpload those crazy photos you took last Saturday night at that party in the Castro

Happy travelling!

Airport Name	San Francisco International (International Terminal, A Gates)
Website	http://www.flysfo.com
IATA Code	SFO
Design
Shopping
Toilets
Overall
	$66.00 (£33.20)
	$99.00 (£49.80 – or click to see other currencies)

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Hong Kong world’s best airport

Hong Kong International Airport has been named Best Airport in the world, in the passenger survey results released on Monday by Skytrax. Despite being “only” rated in 5th place in the most-timely airport survey, Hong Kong received the prestigious award after Skytrax collected 8.2 million questionnaires completed by passengers over a 10-month time period. The London based aviation-research company rated the airports in more than 40 categories of product and service quality from check-in to departure, from arrivals to baggage collection – including terminal cleanliness, staff efficiency, staff courtesy, terminal signage, security processing, immigration and customers, walking distances, as well as features like shopping, dining options, internet services.

Second best airport went to last year’s winner, Singapore Changi airport followed by Seoul Incheon. Best European airport was Munich in 5th place and San Francisco took the place for the best ranked US airport but didn’t make it in the top ten. Here’s the that top ten:

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore Changi
3. Seoul Incheon
4. Kuala Lumpur KLIA
5. Munich
6. Kansai
7. Copenhagen
8. Zurich
9. Helsinki
10. Cape Town

Note that we already wrote about Zurich and Copenhagen on some delay stories, but both airports rated fairly highly in our own surveys as well.

Also, make sure you check out the full list of the category winners – Brisbane for example received the award for the airport with the friendliest staff. Well, I guess that’s no surprise when you work in a city with one of the best climates and the most leisure attitude…

[Picture from Flickr]

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