Dense fog in Bay Area causes major flight delays

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Dense fog was slow to burn off in the Bay Area Monday morning, bad timing for people traveling home after Thanksgiving and going back to work.

At San Francisco International Airport, delays and cancellations plagued travelers all morning. People are used to seeing fog in the Bay Area, but Monday's fog had a lower ceiling than usual and lingered, causing major problems. Many holiday travelers that put off going back home until after the weekend were regretting the decision Monday.

"I'm flying from SFO to Santa Barbara but our flight got cancelled due to fog and yeah, now I'm going to miss all my classes today, which I'm freaking out about," Kristen Angeles told ABC7 News. Short haul trips up and down the West Coast, like hers, were the ones most impacted by the weather Monday. There were a lot of them and many had to be cancelled because of the fog. "In foggy conditions, we're required to space out the aircraft further and that's essentially, what causes these delays," SFO spokesman Doug Yakel said.

Passengers flying out of SFO had a feeling when they saw the fog on their way to the airport. One traveler said it took two hours to drive there from Sonoma. "Traffic, the fog, it was bad. It was really bad today," Time Stornetta said.

The planes were also late getting into SFO. Some passengers said they sat on the runway in Vegas for a half-hour before departing for San Francisco. "They said it was foggy coming back over here from Vegas," Manny Dela Cruz said. "So weather delayed us." Some flights were delayed as long as an hour and ten minutes. Others were cancelled.

Skies at the airport were still pretty gray around 11 a.m. and airport officials were hopeful the fog would burn off and they would resume normal operations by midafternoon. No trips to the East Coast were impacted.

Passengers are encouraged to check the status of their flights before going to the airport.

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