Tired of hugging your loved one goodbye outside of airport security? The Oakland airport has got you covered.
Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport began offering visitor passes this week for guests who don’t have a flight out but want to say hello or goodbye to a traveler at a gate. How it works: Apply online up to seven days in advance of your loved one’s flight, and if you’re approved, show your visitor pass to a TSA agent when you go through security. You can apply the same day as a flight, too.
Airports decide on an individual basis whether to offer these visitor passes, and Oakland announced it would do so on Monday, as travelers started preparing to flock to Bay Area airports for the holidays.
“If you’ve got loved ones coming in or flying out, it gives you just a bit more time to spend with those individuals,” said Craig Simon, the airport’s director of aviation.
Simon said the Oakland airport is the first in the Bay Area to roll out its visitor pass program, and one of the first in California. Nationally, visitor passes are available at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Detroit Metro Airport, Orlando International Airport and others. Pittsburgh International Airport piloted the program in 2017.
It hearkens back to the simpler era of air travel before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when airport security was looser. Then, no one needed to apply for approval to go through security.
Bay Area airports are sure to be slammed this holiday season. At the Oakland airport, Simon said the holiday rush starts today and will probably end Jan. 5. He estimated that 400,000 people will pass through the airport between now and then. Dec. 27 and Jan. 5 will be the busiest days, Simon said.
His advice? “Get here early,” Simon said. He recommended that domestic travelers arrive two hours before their flight is scheduled for lift-off, and three hours prior for international travelers.
Nationally, more than 40 million people are slated to depart from a U.S airport from Monday, Dec. 22 to Friday, Jan. 2, according to the travel analysis site Hopper. The site estimated that only one airport in California would make its top-10 list of the busiest airports this holiday season: Los Angeles International Airport. The top three busiest airports are expected to be those in Atlanta, Denver and Dallas-Fort Worth, Hopper estimated.
About 5,700 U.S. flights were delayed on Friday, according to analysts at FlightAware. More than 1,000 flights had been canceled. FlightAware keeps a live map of delays and cancellations.