Dick Hagerty: Which is the best airport? None of the above

“What airport should we use?” is a question often asked by friends and family planning to visit us by air.

Ah, the easy answer should be Sacramento International Airport, or SMF, but sadly, in my view, that is not a very good solution.

If only the Sacramento planners had truly envisioned a regional airport, those of us in the Stanislaus area would have greatly benefited from this facility.

The choice of location, from a Stanislaus perspective, was very poor. With all the available land between Sacramento and Stockton, why did they need to locate this facility so far north of Sacramento? Perhaps they envisioned Yuba City and Marysville as being prime customers. Surely the location was of no benefit to the much greater population areas of Stockton, Modesto, Turlock and Lodi.

As it is, this airport is no closer than Oakland International, and is not nearly as user-friendly nor does it have the greater menu of available airlines and destinations as Oakland. The only redeeming feature of SMF over Oakland is the often horrendous traffic on the I-580 corridor while comparable rush-hour traffic in Sacramento is generally only an annoyance.

Though winter tule fog has not been such a significant issue in recent years, I have had a standing policy of never flying through Sacramento in December and January. Many times in past years that airport shut down for long periods with zero-zero visibility, a problem seldom experienced in Bay Area locations.

I also find the recent “improvements” most perplexing. They spent a lot of money to turn an easy-access airport into a confused complex. There is little logic to the traffic and parking circulation, and even less in the area of baggage claim and exit to the parking garage.

And who is not perplexed when riding the little “Train to nowhere”?

The train out to the departure area is likely the shortest railway in the modern world. Why they needed the complexity and cost of a train to move travelers such a short distance is hard to understand. Most major airports, like San Francisco and Oakland, have longer corridors than this – which are easily serviced by moving walkways or simply walking areas. Of course, when they had their grand opening a few years back, the first major failure was the above-mentioned train.

Parking is also an issue. They carefully planned the location in such a way to prevent any private off-site companies from developing. Thus, parking in even the cheapest lot is more expensive than off-site facilities in all the Bay Area airports. A rather clever method of maximizing revenues, in my opinion.

Recently I sat in on a presentation by Modesto City Manager Jim Holgersson discussing how to enhance airline use here in Modesto. When questioned as to why we did not seek ways to upgrade airline availability at the Stockton airport so that fliers from San Joaquin and Stanislaus could both use them, he said Stockton is considered part of the Sacramento “catchment area” and thus they would rather rely on SMF than try to find ways to enhance their own facility.

What a sad situation! We are stranded at the very fringe of the Sacramento air service, there’s not much chance Stockton will improve its service and we do not seem to be able to support serious service into Modesto.

I guess I will continue battling Bay Area traffic to find decent air service and ground accommodations and leave the Yuba City International Airport to others.

This story was originally published January 2, 2015 at 4:00 AM with the headline "Dick Hagerty: Which is the best airport? None of the above."