Wednesday, February 1, 2017

SJC grew faster than any other airport last year

We may not have a very large airport, but I would argue it is one of the best in the country. San Jose International is convenient to get in and out of, the central Silicon Valley location is great, it's clean, security moves fast, and staff seems way friendlier than most airports. Thanks to all of the new international and domestic routes SJC nabbed, it has also become the fastest growing airport in terms of passenger count in the country (among the 50 largest airports). SJC grew passenger volume by a whopping 10.2% in 2016!

Delta was the top contributor of additional flights, followed by Alaska and Southwest. SJC is now up to 10.8 million passengers a year, adding one million new passengers last year in its fourth straight year of growth. The increased traffic means hundreds of million of dollars injected into the economy, more tax dollars, and the likelihood of even more international and domestic routes.

2017 already has some many new flights scheduled. JetBlue is adding four flights to Long Beach, United is adding two flights to Chicago O-Hare and one to Newark, Alaska is adding a Newark route of its own and three flights to Burbank, Delta is adding two more flights to Atlanta, Southwest will be adding a new Reno flight, and Air Canada will be adding a third nonstop to Vancouver. The SVBJ also mentions two new gates being added to Terminal B, but I can't find any additional details. I'm assuming they are annexing the two "international" gates between Terminal A and B, but would be thrilled if this is part of a 6-gate expansion originally slated for the very end of Terminal B.

Source: SVBJ


6 comments:

  1. When was a 747 at SJC? Is this normal, I wasn't aware it could handle this size.

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    1. Good eye, SJC is able to support both 747s and 777s. When there is really bad weather at SFO, flights are sometimes routed to SJC. The main reason why we don't have regular 747 flights is economic (and noise), not because they are not supported by the runway. The only plane I know of that we for sure don't support is an A380.

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    2. Didn't understand the economic part. Most new buildings have double pane and that should be good enough to keep the noise out

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    3. By economic, I meant there has not been enough demand to regularly fill entire 747s for international routes in the past. The 787 makes the route more feasible since there are far fewer seats to fill.

      As for noise, I live in the North San Jose area in new housing with double pane windows and hear every plane (you do get used to it). Regular 747 flights would be a major nuisance for 50-100k San Jose residents, especially those that live even closer to the flight path than I do. It's a moot point now with 787s, which are very quiet and serve San Jose's needs better.

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  2. Josh, check out this link for more details regarding the work
    https://www.bidsync.com/bidsync-app-web/vendor/links/BidDetail.xhtml?bidid=2008849&returnPage=searchResults
    It's an interesting set up with a holding area at gate 28 and then a narrow walkway to the new gates 29 and 30. They must be thinking long term in case they want to build the Terminal C in the future.

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    1. Oh wow, it really is an expansion at the end of Terminal B. Great news!

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