San Francisco Airport

Not Verified | Landed at 1pm. Stayed on the tarmac till 1:30. Got into the immigration line at 1:45. 3 hours later we are still not even close to the counter. Still, have to get our bags and clear customs!! Easily the worst experience at an international airport.

Not Verified | Worst airport I have ever been to. Every time I have been here, my flight gets changed, there are no food or drinks stores open after 10pm, they are very disorganized to the point where the flight attendants don’t even know what’s going on. People are everywhere and no one is taking control to organize this experience for others. I am not happy as I have been waiting two extra hours due to no explanation for our flight being delayed. I will not be back.

✅ Trip Verified | I travel all around the world, and without a doubt this is the worst airport I have ever seen. Poor signage. Completely understaffed and disorganized chaos in the security area. Everything was a complete disaster and took twice as long as it should have.

Not Verified | We arrived at 1am in the morning and they made us wait on the tarmac for 30 minutes. When we off the plane the baggage claim area doesn’t show our flight at all and we have no idea which carousel to grab our luggage from. The airport is almost empty at this time and these guys still can’t figure it out.

✅ Trip Verified | The airport, and especially the TSA check, is a total mess. Only a handful of lines open, with people queueing up in their socks (first time I saw a security check with mandatory shoe removal, without providing any sanitary bag to use on the extremely dirty carpet) while the luggages went through the X rays. Unlike in London Heathrow, no passport check before arriving at the gate, so make sure to call in at the check in even if you have already done it and you don't have any checked baggage to drop off, otherwise you will be called at the gate for passport check. The organization is truly terrible. Also the duty free area is pretty poor.

Not Verified | Went through TSA Pre-check line at 10:30 am on a recent Sunday. The wait was over 45 minutes, and we timed people in the regular line getting through in 15 minutes on average. They kept letting all the flight crews go in front (understandable, but why not hold up the 'slow' line instead) and had only two lines open. There were no bins anywhere. If you had keys or a phone in your pocket, you were completely out of luck. My husband had a sweater they made him take off, but it got caught on the conveyor and damaged. Who has run into a baggage scanner which has no bins in use anywhere? If you have a big carry-on, you can put stuff inside - but then that, depending on your bag, means opening up your whole bag on the conveyor belt while they are yelling at you to move it along. I have knee replacements and told them, they sent me through the regular line which beeped of course, then made me go back through the body scanner line, holding others up, and then they had to do a manual search anyway. It was a disorganized mess - the worst security screening we've seen in the past year with about 60 flights in at least 24 airports. Shame on you, SFO!

✅ Trip Verified | 3 staff processing 600 people! The majority of reentry by ESTA got the dreaded X on their biometric scam meaning joining that dreaded queue. No sense of urgency, people missing flights as a result - hopeless!

Not Verified | An absolute nightmare. After an 11 hour flight we stood in line for passport control for 2 hours 50 minutes. People were passing out, paramedics called to someone. Complete chaos. Thought perhaps it was a one off but later met someone in SF who waited for 3 and a half hours in a similar queue. When we eventually got through no belt info for our flight and found all bags had been taken off the carousel. People missed connecting flights. A complete nightmare - one I never wish to repeat so will avoid SFO in future at all costs.

Not Verified | Customs was absurdly understaffed, and it took my husband almost 2 hours to get through. Being a US citizen, I was in a different line, and got through in under a half hour. We missed our flight because of how slow this line was. It's an utter disgrace to put people through that type of wait time after traveling. There were two agents for that huge line. Even having four agents would have made a huge difference. 8 agents would have cut the wait down to just over what I had, which was plenty. After missing our flight, we spoke to a few different help desks. They were all lovely and helpful, but rather low on correct knowledge. One sent us to a travel agency pretty far away to book a new flight, and when we made it there, there was no staff. They also told us we could go to airline counters to book flights which was incorrect. The best advice the one guy gave me was to not book with cheap airlines because they provide bad/low customer service when things go awry! If you're going to fly through here be prepared for possible long customs waits, and read the info on your airlines website (for instance, that the check in desk closes an hour before the flight even though the gate is 10 minutes away!). I guess, basically, be prepared.

✅ Trip Verified | This review focuses on Terminal 3, the United Airlines terminal. This is one of the better United terminals, with an interesting art exhibit in the connecting corridor between concourse F and the main terminal lobby. I've also enjoyed the office cubicles that are provided, although I wish there were more. Security lines could be long, particularly in the central one near the Global Services reception.