OAKLAND (KRON) — Bay Area airports are getting an influx of people flying in for the Super Bowl.
In addition to commercial airplanes, 1,200 to 1,500 private airplanes will be saturating the airspace.
Not one airport can handle all that traffic, so it is being split up around the Bay Area, with Oakland seeing most of them. Oakland has the most slots available for private jets.
Oakland airport normally sees 12-15 private jets per day, and they expect to see that number per hour after the Super Bowl.
The FAA and NFL had to identify how much traffic each airport can hold. The planning process took about a year.
Assistant director of aviation for the Port of Oakland, Matthew Davis, said commercial travel is expected to go up 30 percent. Typically, that is what they see on Thanksgiving.
“And those aircraft are given priority, so the goal is to not…impact their operations,” Davis said. “Everybody else coming in is actually going to be subjected to a slot system, so they have to have a reservation before they come into the Bay Area, regardless of what airport they’re going into.”
San Francisco airport will see just under 200 private jets.
The runways at Oakland International will be heavily trafficked, with an expected 500 private jets on the ground during the Super Bowl.
“There’s a whole tow plan for how those aircraft are going to be managed once they’re on the ground,” Davis said.
That means extra TSA staffing to help lines move quickly. There is a plan for parking and taxi routes.
Airport officials said they are hoping they will be able to manage traffic in and around the area.
“We’ve been working with some traffic engineers on modeling. We have some routing that we’ve been putting together on that side of the airport to make sure that the roadway stay moving.”
Officials expect a lot of those private jets to head out Sunday after the game, but they anticipate the busiest day to be Monday