San Francisco Airport to Open Remainder of International Terminal

Image: PHOTO: The international terminal at San Francisco International Airport. (photo via nathanphoto/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus)
Image: PHOTO: The international terminal at San Francisco International Airport. (photo via nathanphoto/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus)
Rich Thomaselli
by Rich Thomaselli
Last updated: 10:46 AM ET, Wed August 26, 2020

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) officials will open the rest of the Mayor Edwin M. Lee International Terminal departures hall on Tuesday, September 1, as more foreign airlines start to resume flights to the U.S.

It's a small but encouraging sign that demand for air travel is ticking up, however slowly it might be.

Half of the international terminal has been closed since April, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, when the coronavirus pandemic began devastating air travel.

The airport consolidated international flights into the international terminal's "G gates" on the opposite end of the airport's horseshoe shape. The gates reopening will be the "A gates." According to the newspaper, these are the routes coming back to SFO:

- Emirates resumes flying from its Dubai hub on Sept. 1.

- SWISS resumes flights from Zurich on Sept. 2.

- United will add additional flights to Shanghai (via Seoul) on Sept. 4 and resumes flights to Munich on Sept. 9.

- COPA Airlines will resume flights to Panama City on Sept. 4.

- Air Canada has tentatively scheduled non-stop flights from Montreal to resume on Oct. 2.

- Fiji Airways plans to resume flights from Nadi on Oct. 2.

- TAP Air Portugal resumes flights from Lisbon on Oct. 2.

- Lufthansa will resume flights from its Frankfurt hub on Oct 3.

In 2019, 44 airlines operated international flights out of SFO; at the moment, 19 airlines have returned to the airport.


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Rich Thomaselli

Rich Thomaselli

Associate Writer

Editor Associate Writer true 9281 14744 Rich Thomaselli has written for TravelPulse since 2014 and has been a professional journalist for nearly 40 years. His work has appeared in USA Today, the New York Times and New York Yankees publications. He is an 11-time writ

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