SAN DIEGO – Mayor Todd Gloria today announced that he has tapped City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and attorney Gil Cabrera to serve on the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Board of Directors. He also announced that current Board Member Johanna Schiavoni will serve as Chair, replacing April Boling, who will step down from the Board at the end of the month. 

What is normally a busy travel time, this December is looking quite different due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On November 13, 2020, the California Department of Public Health issued a travel advisory for non-essential travel (side note: what’s essential vs. non-essential travel you ask? Click here to learn more) which requests that persons arriving in California from other states or countries should practice self-quarantining for 14 days after arrival. In addition, Californians are encouraged to stay home or in their region and avoid non-essential travel to other states or countries.

Oh, how we miss the excitement of holiday travel! December is typically a very busy month for our airport, when the terminals are filled with passengers eager to visit friends and family all over the world. This year many of us are staying home and finding creative ways to stay connected to the people and places that matter most.

Every year we work on compiling a Sustainability Report which re-affirms our commitment to continuous improvement and transparency in social, economic, and environmental performance. We have released our 2019-2020 Sustainability Report which can be viewed at sustain.san.org.

During the pandemic, there has been a great deal of emphasis on air circulation and its relation to COVID-19. All HVAC systems at San Diego International Airport (SAN) were designed to meet American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers standards for ventilation for indoor air quality. Our systems meet or exceed industry filtration standards, meaning we filter the air at a recommended level between “Superior Commercial Buildings” and “Hospital Inpatient Care.” Additionally, 60 percent of air handlers installed in the airport contain ultraviolet light which provides extra protection to kill bacteria and viruses.

Here at San Diego International Airport (SAN), there are certain destinations that we would love to include on our nonstop destination list. Those routes are ones that we don’t currently offer and would allow for our community to access locations without having to connect or fly from regional hubs. Cancún, Mexico is one of those routes. Our air service team has been trying to get service to Cancún for quite some time (a couple of years at least, but hey, who’s counting) and Alaska Airlines finally came through for the win when they announced they would begin seasonal service on November 20.