Starting November 17, travelers flying out of Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport will be able to clear security in Santa Rosa and skip the TSA line at San Francisco International Airport altogether, boarding a motorcoach that drives directly onto the SFO tarmac. The new Straight to Gate service comes from Landline, a ground-transportation company that functions less like a shuttle and more like a connecting flight on wheels.
The service was jointly announced by Landline, Sonoma County Airport and SFO, according to The Press Democrat. Passengers flying United, Alaska, Hawaiian, American or JetBlue out of SFO will be able to check in and clear TSA screening right at the Santa Rosa airport, then board a secure motorcoach at Gate A6 that arrives at SFO’s Gate A3 — entering the terminal without going through security again. Checked luggage gets transferred straight to the traveler’s flight, and those with mobile boarding passes and no bags to check can walk straight to the Santa Rosa security line without even stopping at the Landline counter.
Eight Round Trips a Day, $55 a Seat
The service will run eight nonstop round trips daily, with coaches departing Santa Rosa at 5, 7, 9 and 11 a.m. and again at 1, 3, 5:30 and 8 p.m., per the same Press Democrat report. Return coaches leave SFO roughly between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m., and the drive itself takes about two hours, with Landline building in an extra 30 to 40 minutes of cushion during heavy traffic. A one-way adult fare runs $55, and kids 15 and younger ride free with a paying adult.
Notably, passengers arriving at SFO on any airline — not just the five Landline currently partners with — can hop a returning coach curbside outside baggage claim at any terminal. Reservations open at sfo.landline.com, where travelers enter their flight information and receive a recommended departure time; boarding begins about 15 minutes before the coach pulls out, and Landline staff can print boarding passes and tag luggage on site. Customers book directly with Landline rather than through an airline, though the company has an agreement to pay airport fees to Sonoma County rather than the other way around — the county does not pay Landline to run the service, and instead expects added revenue from passenger fees, facility leases, parking and concessions.
A Model Built on Highway 101's Traffic Problem
The appeal of the new service is rooted in a familiar North Bay headache: getting to SFO by road. Standard shuttles drop passengers landside at the curb, leaving them to navigate traffic and then clear SFO’s own TSA lines — a process the airport’s Integrated Operations Center aims to keep under 20 minutes, per SFGATE, which also notes SFO is California’s second-busiest airport and a major trans-Pacific hub for United and Alaska. Landline’s service instead carries passengers by secure motorcoach to SFO’s airside gates, rather than dropping them landside at the curb.
That model isn’t unique to Sonoma County. Landline operates a similar remote terminal with Massport in Framingham, Massachusetts, roughly 20 miles outside Boston Logan, where passengers can complete check-in and TSA screening before continuing by coach to the airport. Landline also opened a remote terminal in Montreal this summer, and the Santa Rosa route marks the company’s first in the Pacific time zone. Founded in 2019, Landline has carried more than 1 million passengers and now runs more than 200 daily departures across North America, with its workforce roughly doubling to about 350 full-time employees over the past year.
Why Buses Instead of Regional Flights
Sonoma County Airport manager Jon Stout said the new service will not affect the existing operations of Groome Transportation, which has run scheduled shuttles between Santa Rosa, SFO and Oakland since acquiring Airport Express in 2017 and continues to drop passengers at the SFO curb rather than airside. Stout said Landline gives travelers more domestic and international connection options while preserving the experience at Santa Rosa’s airport.
Landline founder and CEO David Sunde argued that connecting Sonoma County to SFO by bus makes more practical sense than it might sound, saying that regional airplane service becomes less compelling once boarding, taxiing and flight approach times are factored in. The history backs up the challenge of sustaining small regional flights: United began three daily Santa Rosa–SFO flights in June 2017, suspended the route in 2020, and cut it again in October 2022. Delta, meanwhile, began new Santa Rosa–Salt Lake City flights earlier this month, with curbside check-in available for those passengers at the Santa Rosa airport.
Nick Johnson, Landline’s vice president for commercial, said the company plans to add more airlines to the Sonoma County–SFO arrangement in the coming months. The motorcoaches themselves are outfitted with wheelchair accessibility, leather seating, extra legroom, charging outlets, restrooms and Starlink Wi-Fi, and Landline has said the coaches will not stop en route to pick up additional passengers.
Record Crowds Are Reshaping the Airport
The timing lines up with explosive growth at the Santa Rosa airport. STS logged an all-time annual record of 780,637 passengers in 2025 — a 21.8% jump over 2023 and 60% above pre-pandemic 2019 levels — according to Sonoma County Airport, even after the airport lost low-cost carrier Avelo Airlines partway through the year.
Southwest Airlines added to that crowding when it launched service at STS in April, becoming the airport’s third major commercial carrier with nonstop flights to San Diego, Las Vegas, Burbank and Denver — a move that designated Santa Rosa as Southwest’s 14th California destination.
Hoodline previously covered STS's growth ahead of Southwest's arrival, and the airport has also seen operational hiccups amid the surge, including a tower technology glitch this past July that sent some flights on unexpected detours.
