The 220 passengers and all crew members were unharmed, according to the spokesperson. As of 11 a.m., the passengers were currently being rescued and being returned to the nearby Pleasanton station. The train was not derailed in the incident.

Service may be impacted throughout the day as crews work to clear the tracks before they can make determinations on what to do with the impacted train.

Located just north of Antioch and south of Rio Vista, Brannan Island State Recreation Area is part of a maze of waterways and marshes in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta long popular for boating, fishing, swimming and camping.

And though its picnic tables and campsites surrounded by mighty oaks and towering eucalyptus trees sit empty now, Clint Elsholz, state Diablo Range District acting superintendent, knows that the park will soon be filling up.

“(Since the pandemic), parks have seen a big spike in attendance,” said Elsholz, who oversees the 336-acre site. “People want to be outdoors, so I expect the campgrounds to be very popular over the summer.”

Last March, American Land & Leisure, which operated the park since 2013, opted not to renew its lease with State Parks, effectively shutting down the park much to the dismay of its longtime users. Elsholz said park officials scrambled to reassign workers and reopen the popular boat launch last June, but only on weekends, while they looked for a concessionaire to replace the Utah property management company.

Elsholz thanked the public for its patience while waiting for a new operator. He added that he was “excited for the new partnership” with Park Delta Bay of Isleton to bring camping and day-use opportunities back to Brannan Island. Reservations for the 136 campsites – both tent and RV hookups in five different areas and a rustic cabin – were being taken as of the first of the year.

Park Delta Bay operates an RV and tiny house resort just down the road, about six miles from Brannan Island State Recreation Area, and Esholz said he believed the company would do well restoring the state recreation area, which first opened in 1952.

“He (owner Eric Chiu) has vision,” Elsholz said, noting that adding a bait store – the first ever at the site – should be a welcome amenity for visitors.

Hap’s Bait and Tackle, a longtime Rio Vista store, was forced to close recently and will be reopening at the park.

“He (Chiu) is going to put it in as part of the experience at the park, and that’s the kind of vision that will bring people out,” Elsholz said. “It’s pretty exciting. It’s something that’s important to the locals.”

Chiu could not be reached for comment but his park managers Chris and Billie Logan, who are doing much of hands-on work sprucing up the park, were optimistic about its future and said getting the bait shop up and running was “the first order of business.” Chris Logan estimated it would open “in a couple of weeks.”

The couple managed the park for three years before leaving last spring, but were excited to return when the new operator was found.

“I came back because I know so much about the park and I knew it was the right time to come in to try to get things done that I thought needed to be addressed,” said Chris Logan who now lives with his wife inside the park. “I knew I could get a fresh start and get things going.”

Besides cleaning up debris, landscaping and other minor maintenance, Logan said the park will have to clean up the beach in the Seven Mile Slough area for the summer, when operators expect to add lifeguards and paddle boats for rent. The beach will be a big draw, he said.

“People always come in and say, ‘Where’s the beach?’ ” Logan added. “It’s tide-oriented. When the tide is in, there’s no beach, when the tide’s out there is.”

Elsholz said over the years the beach has become overgrown with weeds but park officials will work to clear it.

“We have some Himalayan blackberry that’s crept in there that we want to take out and expand it,” he said of the beach. “It’ll still accommodate swimming – I don’t think we’re going to have to dredge – but we’re going to do some vegetation management on the site.”

“Boaters drive 60 to 100 miles to come here because it’s one of the nicest boat launches (in the delta area),” Logan said, noting they can launch up to 10 boats at a time.

“It’s nice and wide, and the parking is plentiful,” Elsholz added.

You don’t have to convince longtime boater Doug McArthur of Stockton about that. McArthur has run charter fishing boats out of Brannan Island for more than a decade and was delighted when the park fully reopened in December.

“There’s a lot of private boat launches, but this is one of the few public ones in the area,” he said. “There are days on the weekends during the prime fishing season when you can’t find anything less than probably 80 to 100 boat trailers in the parking lot.”

Even on a busy day, though, McArthur said he’s never had to wait for a launch “because there’s so much space.”

“That’s what we love, and the fact that it (the park) sits between the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers,” making it easy to fish either one depending on conditions, he said.

“I can pull out of that spot and go left or right and I’m pretty much right on top of where I want to fish without having to go burn a bunch of fuel down the river,” McArthur said.

If you don’t have a boat, like to camp or hang out at the beach, Elsholz noted Brannan Island has a network of trails, bird watching and “many ways to connect with nature.”

“I just think it’s overlooked,” he said. “I think that the delta is overlooked by a lot of people.”

Online camping reservations for Brannan Island State Recreational Area are available on ReserveCalifornia.com.

The glitch affected a system known as NOTAM — standing for Notice to Air Missions — which pilots, air dispatchers and others are required to consult before a takeoff. The system provides alerts about weather, ground conditions and other information that could affect a flight.

The cause of the outage will be investigated by the federal Department of Transportation, President Joe Biden said on Wednesday morning. Air travel was halted for hours before resuming just after 6 a.m. Pacific time.

In the Bay Area, airport spokespersons reported normal or minimal amounts of cancelations in their early-morning operations, but the West Coast avoided much of the travel-related havoc, due to the disruption happening before most of the morning’s takeoffs were scheduled.

Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport spokesperson Keonnis Taylor said only one flight was delayed as of 9:43 a.m. Wednesday due to the FAA’s issues.

“Due to the early time, most of our flights had not yet begun operating,” Taylor said via email. “We’ve also been fortunate with the weather. We have maintained normal operations, and have provided support for several diverted aircraft unable to land at nearby airports.”

On Wednesday morning, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported as many as six Southwest Airlines flights into and out of SJC were canceled and 81 were delayed in the wake of the FAA outage. The new delays harken back to late December, when thousands of flights were canceled during the holiday season, leaving travelers stranded as they searched for new flights.

When asked to confirm Wednesday’s report, the airline told Bay Area News Group it’s “not able to provide market specific information as it’s been changing throughout the day.”

Taylor later clarified that “since the day has progressed, additional operations have been impacted … Compared to a typical day, my team indicates that aside from the delays being reported by Southwest Airlines, operations are normal.”

San Francisco International Airport spokesperson Doug Yakel told the Bay Area News Group that the 20 flight cancellations Wednesday morning were a normal amount. He added there were 83 flight delays as of 7:30 a.m., comprising of about 9% of all SFO flights.

Yakel said there was “no way” to break down the reasons why flights were delayed or cancelled.

“Speaking generally, we are seeing minimal cancellations but some residual delays on the schedule that are more than typical, especially among arriving flights through this afternoon.” Skantz said via email.  “I did check in with our operations team and they report no unusually long lines or passenger crowding at this time.”

SAN JOSE — Passenger trips through the airports in San Jose and Oakland are cruising at levels that are well below the altitudes where they soared before the coronavirus outbreak.

The deadly bug unleashed an array of economic ailments on the travel markets and the hotel sector in the Bay Area and worldwide. The East Bay and South Bay airports have yet to fully recover from their prior maladies.

Updated reports suggest that both San Jose International Airport and Oakland International Airport continue to struggle to reclaim the activity stratospheres they had reached prior to the coronavirus.

During the month of November, San Jose airport handled 1.03 million passengers while Oakland airport accommodated slightly fewer than 972,500 passengers, according to separate reports released by the aviation hubs.

Passenger activity during November was up 24.4% at San Jose airport compared with the same month in 2021, according to statistics that the South Bay airport posted.

“We are pleased to see travelers continuing to return, and that they are choosing San Jose,” said Keonnis Taylor, a spokesperson for San Jose International Airport.

In November, Oakland airport’s passenger activity was up 18.4% from the same month in 2021, the East Bay airport reported.

“Oakland International Airport has surpassed 10 million passengers so far in 2022 with December totals still to come,” said Bryant Francis, director of aviation with the Port of Oakland, referring to the totals for the first 11 months of 2022.

Both airports for several months have been showing sturdy upswings in passenger activity at the travel centers.

Yet even with the improving trends, it’s clear that both airports have a long way to go to get back to where they were before the arrival of the coronavirus.

The shortfall in passengers becomes apparent in a comparison of the current yearly trends at San Jose and Oakland airports to 2019, the final year before the outbreak of the coronavirus, according to a Bay Area News Group review of the passenger statistics for both aviation hubs.

Over the one-year period ending in November, San Jose International Airport handled 11.24 million passengers.

San Jose’s passenger activity for the most recent 12-month period was 28.2% below the airport’s all-time record of 15.65 million passengers in 2019.

During the 12 months that ended in November, Oakland International Airport accommodated 11.09 million passengers.

Despite the shortfalls in activity compared to the peak years for the two airports, the trends are hopeful, officials with both aviation hubs said.

“Our teams are doing a great job, working with the airlines, concessions, and many other partners to ensure we provide the convenience and access people love at San Jose International Airport,” Taylor said.

San Jose airport handled only 4.71 million passengers in 2020, the first year of the coronavirus outbreak. In 2021, the airport handled 7.36 million passengers, a signifant comeback but still a drastic reduction over the previous years. San Jose’s 11.24 million passenger total over the one-year period ending in November was 52.7% higher than the 2021 total.

Oakland’s airport handled 4.62 million passengers in 2020 and 8.14 million passengers in 2021. This means Oakland’s most recent 12-month total of 11.09 million passengers was 36.2% higher than the 2021 amount.

The travel meltdown that winter storms unleashed in December might undermine the passenger totals for last month at the two airports, although those stats have yet to be released. That number may be further reduced by the scheduling issue that brought Southwest Airlines — which has flights to and from all three Bay Area aiports dozens of times on a normal day — to a halt, leaving thousands of travelers stranded.

The San Jose and Oakland airports recently added flights to key destinations, and officials at the two aviation hubs believe the prospects for 2023 are bright.

San Jose recently added new Zipair low-cost flights between the South Bay and Tokyo Narita International Airport in Japan, and also added Southwest Airlines flights between San Jose and Palm Springs in Southern California.

Oakland will gain first-time flights connecting the East Bay with San Salvador, starting this March.

“We look forward to a new year of positive developments, with new routes added and new restaurants opening in the months ahead,” Oakland airport’s Francis said.

How does $800 from Chicago to San Jose sound? Need to get back to the Bay Area from Phoenix on Thursday? The cheapest ticket is $418 — but you’ll have to spend more than 4 hours waiting for a connection at Paine Field in Everett, Washington.

It doesn’t matter where you’re going or on which airline: Airfares and routes are setting a new definition for mind-blowing and nonsensical.

A last-minute traveler can usually book a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco for under $100, and Southwest was one of the main carriers along that route. But as of Wednesday afternoon, if you needed to fly to the Bay Area from the L.A. area before Jan. 1, one-way tickets would cost anywhere between $350 and $700 for the cheapest options. And that’s even with some airlines, such as United and American, announcing price caps to help stranded Southwest customers on many of the most-impacted routes.

Prices should start to drop over the weekend and come way down next week if Southwest’s operations get back to normal, experts say. In the meantime, the cheapest flight Thursday from Phoenix to Las Vegas is going for … this is not a typo … $999 on United. On most days in January, discount airlines Spirit and Frontier are offering a bare-bones version of that trip for less than $20.

If you are trying to get back to the Bay Area from the major East Coast metropolitan areas such as Washington, D.C., and New York, tickets this weekend are ranging from $359 to over $600 for a one-way fare, and well over $900 if you need to fly before Saturday.

Kathleen Bangs, a former airline pilot and spokesperson for the flight-tracking company FlightAware, has some advice if you can’t wait for Southwest to rebook you in the New Year and have to choose a different airline. “Find alternate transportation, take pictures of everything, keep receipts, and then submit it” to Southwest.

“The irony is that Southwest is known for their excellent customer service” said Bangs. She does expect the airlines to honor reasonable requests for reimbursement caused by non-weather delays, as the CEO has promised, but she noted that consumers can also submit their complaints and documentation to the Department of Transportation online now.

Some Bay Area airports such as Oakland and San Jose have a higher proportion of Southwest flights than other airports and were disproportionately affected by the cancellations. On Tuesday, San Jose and Sacramento airports both had more than a third of their flights canceled. On Wednesday San Jose had 73 cancellations, 32% of flights, Oakland had 63 cancellations, 22% of incoming flights, and Sacramento had the highest in the country at 39%, with 72 cancellations.

But the Bay Area is far from the only place experiencing sticker shock. Flights from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., normally a 1-hour direct flight, are nearly impossible to find for Thursday or Friday, with every available option on the travel website Kayak as of Wednesday afternoon costing over $1,000, even with an 11-hour layover in Chicago, several hundred miles in the wrong direction. Driving the same distance would take just 4-5 hours. And other stories of exorbitantly expensive flights and irrational itineraries are easy to find as the dust settles.

“My husband and I are fortunate to be able to afford an unexpected $501 expense,” she said, adding up the cost of the Lyft, hotel and car rental they had to make, “and I am not optimistic we will recoup that.”

“I’m sure for many travelers that’d be a huge hardship,” she said, “especially this time of year.”

While weather was the first domino, certain trends in air travel overall and Southwest in particular have added to the chaos. Bangs says more people are flying now than before the pandemic but on fewer planes. This has to do with pilot shortages and other changes that have left less wiggle room to accommodate delays, cancellations and extra passengers.

With fewer empty seats, there is less wiggle room when things go wrong. It has taken longer for stranded Southwest passengers to get the available seats on other airlines, pushing prices even higher than last-minute holiday travel usually is.

Tell us how much you had to pay and how crazy your route home was from being stranded by Southwest.

The airport saw 147 Southwest flights canceled on Wednesday, or 74% of air traffic scheduled through the airline, according to Flight Aware.

San Jose’s airline woes ranked number four in the country. Only airports in Long Beach, Sacramento, and Buffalo, New York, which was blanketed in over four feet of snow, top San Jose’s cancelation rate for departing flights.

Oakland International also saw 124 flights axed through Southwest on Wednesday. San Francisco International Airport saw a staggering 79% of Southwest canceled, but the airport is not a major hub for the Dallas-based airline.

While a massive Christmas-weekend storm devastated air travel across the country, Southwest’s woes have snowballed into a staggering collapse that has now triggered a federal probe of the “disproportionate and unacceptable” cancellations.

“This has clearly crossed the line from what’s an uncontrollable weather situation to something that is the airline’s direct responsibility,”  U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on NBC on Tuesday.

The travel disruptions are expected to continue throughout the week. Southwest said Monday it will be flying roughly one-third of its scheduled flights “for the next several days.”

“We’re focused on safely getting all of the pieces back into position to end this rolling struggle,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said in a video statement on Tuesday. He vowed to “lean in and go above and beyond” for customers.

Fuel Up

Get fully caffeinated. Uptown is a hotbed for coffee. Make a little extra time for The Crown, specialty green coffee importer Royal Coffee’s lab and tasting room. This is a coffee geek’s heaven, with flights of coffee and espresso and rotating selections of pour-overs. Chat up the baristas — they have a lot of knowledge — and sip on a single-origin roast while you plot the day ahead. Just don’t ask for milk…it is a purist situation here.

Art walk

Uptown has a wildly creative side, starting with the sparkling Oaklandish Tree sculpture that welcomes all visitors in this part of town.

A self-guided art walk is a good way to soak it all in, and there are numerous galleries to use as a jumping-off point. Johansson Projects, a contemporary gallery on Telegraph Ave., is a go-to independent spot for compelling contemporary exhibits by a wide range of both emerging and established artists. The current “Someday Morning” show features dreamy modern paintings inspired by the natural world and runs through Dec. 31.

Rock Paper Scissors Collective, a volunteer-run nonprofit, offers workshops, gallery exhibitions, a retail shop, youth programs and community events. Rock Paper Scissors is one of three community organizations — including Oakland Art Murmur and the Koreatown/Northgate Oakland Community Benefit District — that helped launch the now-famous Oakland First Fridays art events. A visit to the collective’s new location on Martin Luther King Jr. Way promises stunning works by 10 printmakers.

And don’t miss the dozens of inspiring murals and graffiti-style art lining the neighborhood buildings, including the stunning Steph Curry mural on the 2300 Broadway block of Uptown Oakland, just across from The Hive. The Bay Area Mural Program is behind the massive mural, which shows Curry reading to Oakland youth and making a three-pointer with his classic pose.

Rest stop with suds

Ready to lounge for a bit? Head over to the new Two Pitchers Brewing Company, which specializes in small-batch fruity radlers, including lagers, a wheat ale, milk stout and sparkling rosé-style radler. The dog-friendly taproom and beer garden is located in a historic auto repair shop where burgers, fried chicken sandwiches, Schwartz all-beef hot dogs and even soft serve are available, courtesy of Lovely’s.

Up for a show?

Come nighttime, Uptown is abuzz with live music and comedy shows at the major venues like the Paramount Theater and Fox Theater. If you’re looking for a more intimate show, check out The New Parish, a venue showcasing everything from reggae and roots to rock and world music. The outdoor patio is a draw, as is the bar, which churns out stiff drinks at a reasonable price.

If you go

The Crown: 2523 Broadway; https://royalcoffee.com/tasting-room

Johansson Projects: 2300 Telegraph Ave., Oakland; https://johanssonprojects.com

Rock Paper Scissors Collective: 2120 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland; www.rpscollective.org

Two Pitchers Brewing Company: 2344 Webster St., Oakland; www.twopitchers.com

The Parish: 1743 San Pablo Ave., Oakland; https://thenewparish.com

A dog abandoned at the San Francisco airport has found a forever home with a United Airlines captain, according to the San Francisco SPCA.

A pup named Polaris had arrived to San Francisco with a traveler from an international destination. But the dog was abandoned at the airport when “the customer chose to continue traveling on without his animal,” the San Francisco SPCA said in a December 16 news release.

United Airlines “worked to ensure the puppy completed necessary requirements to enter the United States, including a quarantine period,” said the nonprofit in the release.

And after completing quarantine, the pup has found a forever home with United Airlines Captain William Dale, according to the release. On December 15, the airline hosted a festive adoption party at the airport to celebrate Polaris’ adoption. The airline also donated $5,000 to support the San Francisco SPCA’s mission.

“United’s Customer Service team took on quite a challenge to ensure Polaris would be safe, healthy, and find a loving home,” said Lisa Feder, SF SPCA chief of rescue and welfare.

“It’s a great feeling to see this story come full circle and that Polaris will have a loving home with United Airlines Captain Dale and his family — just in time for the holidays.”

The-CNN-Wire & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

On Dec. 31,  BART will continue its standard services until midnight, and then the Yellow, Blue and Orange lines will continue operating past 1 a.m. The trains will stop at all the usual stations, except for at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and the Oakland International Airport (OAK).

BART advises that customers obtain a digital clipper card on their mobile phone and load funds onto it before heading to the station, as long lines are anticipated.

BART’s Trip Planner has already been updated to include travel information on the extended transit lines. Extra train events with direct service to Dublin, Richmond and Berryessa will be announced on the BART website on New Year’s Eve based on availability.

Some key times to plan around include:

• The last East Bay-bound train running through downtown San Francisco will be at around 1:30 a.m.
• The last southbound train heading toward Millbrae will run through downtown San Francisco at 2:10 a.m.
• Extra event trains will run during the last hour of service to provide direct service.

Fresh from a trip to Maui with 10 family members, Smith was preparing to drive to Hayward for Christmas Day and fly to Las Vegas for New Year’s.

“With COVID happening over the last couple of years, travel plans were really nipped in the bud,” he said Tuesday morning while filling the tank of a gray Nissan Sentra at a Chevron on Third Street in San Rafael.

“This year, we were willing to make whatever adjustments to treat ourselves,” Smith said.

John Treanor, a spokesperson for AAA, said California would likely see its busiest travel years since 2019 –– 15 million of its residents are expected to leave home between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2.

“What we’re seeing this year is pandemic versus post pandemic,” Treanor said. “As restrictions have been lifted, with vaccinations, we’ve seen those travel numbers increase.”

The numbers mark a 3.7% increase from last year.

Nationwide about 102 million people will travel by car, an increase of about 2% from the previous year. About 7.2 million people will fly, an increase of about 14%. Other forms of travel will account for about 3.66 million people, which is also boosted from a year ago.

Will Laviano of San Rafael said he was driving to Lake Tahoe with his family for the Christmas weekend. They planned to ski and stay in a townhouse at Incline Village.

“We can spend the night there, spend Christmas there,” he said.

A few days later, after the family returns, Laviano will board a flight to New York City to visit his girlfriend for the New Year’s holiday.

“Right now, it just seems easy,” he said.

Gas prices have been on a steady decline since the summer peak.

On Tuesday the statewide gas price averaged $4.36. In Marin, average gas prices were $4.41. Nationally, the average has fallen to $3.12.

Since the last month, prices in the state and the county have fallen by about a dollar. On June 13, Marin recorded its highest average gas price of $6.67.

So far, average gas prices in the state were even below last year’s average of $4.67. Marin has fit the same trend, marking $4.82 average gas prices one year ago.

Treanor said AAA has found that gas prices impacted daily life and commuters more than planned travel.

“Americans are still taking trips. We saw the appetite for traveling was there and it’s still there with prices having been lower than what they’ve been in a long time,” he said.

Still, the totals have not completely resurged since the start of the pandemic. In all, there is about 3.3% more travel since 2021. The numbers still fall 5.5% short of 2019, which saw 119.3 million travelers.

Some Marin residents will have visitors coming to them.

Sue Weil of San Rafael was preparing to greet her daughter, due into San Francisco International Airport from Manhattan.

“My kids usually come to me,” she said.

Prices made a difference this year, Weil said. Her daughter used accrued miles to pay for the trip. Weil spent $56 for 12 gallons of gas.

“Even though I’m staying here for the holidays, I’m trying to be conservative about a lot of things,” she said.

George Mazet of Woodacre said he was staying in town with family. One set of grandparents were Marin residents, he said, and the others were making the approximately 200-mile drive from Redding.

“Most of the years we spend it at home,” he said. “We just do it out of habit.”

Mazet, a wildlife biologist, spent $180 filling the tank of his F-350 with diesel at a Shell station on Irwin Street in San Rafael. His next big driving trip was for work in San Diego and after the holidays in March.

“All I can say is be careful of people on the road,” he said. “Stay sober. Travel a day before. Make plans. Avoid the traffic.”

Christmas and New Year’s both fall on the weekends this year. Thus, peak travel days were expected to be the Fridays before the holidays and the Mondays after the big day. Drivers can expect up to 25% longer travel times nationwide.

Most noted plans to continue travel even after the holiday season.

Laviano said he plans to move to Los Angeles after he returns from New York.

Smith said he’s trying to “squeeze as many trips as possible into the next couple months.

“Who knows when the next pandemic is going to be,” he said. “We’ve got the holiday season now and I don’t want to waste it.”