Growth of Traffic Near MENLO Waypoint

As you may know, flights from the north, south and west converge over a waypoint near the intersection of Willow Road and 101. They aim for an altitude of 4000 feet at MENLO and from there, they take the final approach into SFO. Our friend James Sun has analyzed the growth of traffic between 3K and 5K feet into a 7 mile radius ‘cylinder’ around MENLO. The results are presented here. This information was obtained from information received from the FAA via a FOIA request. The circles represent radar pings rather than the actual number of flights. The largest circles represent 15K pings per month (the results could be inaccurate if the ping rate has changed over the years). As you can see, the number of flights from the south and southeast appears to have grown substantially.

2006

2009

2012

2015