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OPERATIONS      
May | June 2026      AirportImprovement.com
SFO
The operations center is the 
beating heart of an airport, 
vibrating with insights into what 
is happening on site at any given moment. 
However, sometimes different departments 
and functions are scattered throughout 
the airport. That used to be true for San 
Francisco International Airport (SFO), 
but no longer: It celebrated the official 
opening of a centralized Airport Integrated 
Operations Center (AIOC) earlier this year.   
Housed in a new administration office 
building between terminals 2 and 3, the 
AIOC is a centralized hub that operates 
24/7, pulling together the management of 
security, 911 dispatch, facilities, airlines, 
operations and planning. The center plays 
an important role at 
SFO, which currently 
accommodates about 
55 million annual 
passengers. AIOC 
Director Nancy Byun 
Riedel anticipates 
growth up to 78.5 
million passengers per year with the 
airport’s current runway configuration. 
“We think about that level of growth 
and how can we offer an extraordinary 
experience for our customers, because 
how our customers feel about our airport 
when they come through is very important 
to us,” Byun Riedel says. “Our vision is to 
inspire the extraordinary, and our AIOC 
vision is to empower the extraordinary with 
this 24/7 group of professionals.” 
From Separate to Intertwined
Airports around the world call their 
operations centers by different names. SFO 
was deliberate in including the “I” in AIOC 
to emphasize the importance integrating 
previously disparate departments. The 
centralized hub was designed to enhance 
the coordination and management of the 
airport as a single entity and to integrate 
the various airport functions that previously 
operated somewhat in separate silos.    
It wasn’t always envisioned in this 
way, though. Chris Gardini, the project 
manager and project 
architect for HOK 
who coordinated 
with Hensel Phelps 
Construction and 
the rest of the AIOC 
design-build team, 
has been working 
with SFO for almost 
two decades and knows the history of this 
phase very well. 
“When the project started in 2018, 
integration was less of a project priority,” 
Gardini recalls.
Initially, each department was protective 
about its own space, wanting to operate in 
a discrete section with walls separating it 
from other functions. Then, the airport had 
to move the Security Operations Center 
and the 911 Center into a new shared 
location during terminal construction. The 
groups discovered they enjoyed working 
together in the same room, and that 
paved the way for the new AIOC, Gardini 
explains. The space-saving strategy made 
San Francisco Int’l Opens New Integrated Operations 
Center, Increasing Efficiency Across the Board BY KRISTIN V. SHAW
CHRIS GARDINI
NANCY BYUN RIEDEL

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