Pressure on O'Hare Airport to Upgrade

USA Today: Fifty-six years after O’Hare’s first commercial flights, the city has reached a deal that allows it to continue an expansion plan that includes new runways, airfield improvements and a new terminal.The project is meant to ease congestion and reduce the delays that contribute to O’Hare’s bad reputation among some of the 66.6 million passengers who use it each year.

The city, which operates the airport, “is positioning O’Hare to set the standards for the industry well into the future,” says Chicago Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino.

The Federal Aviation Administration, she notes, estimates that when the last new runway is done in 2020, delays will be reduced by 64%. The pressure for upgrades is mounting. As the economy rebounds, “The bogeyman of major congestion lurks on the horizon” without major runway improvements, says Joseph Schwieterman, a transportation professor at Chicago’s DePaul University.

Completing the plan will cost $3.4 billion. Parts of the “modernization,” including a new west terminal, are on hold temporarily, while $1.17 billion worth of work is underway.

Odds against getting out of O’Hare on time are higher than at many other large U.S. airports. In January, 73.9% of flights left O’Hare on time, putting it 21st on a Transportation Department report ranking 29 airports. Midway, Chicago’s other airport, was in last place with 60%. In first place: Seattle-Tacoma International, where 85.1% of flights departed on time.

The factors that make O’Hare appealing to passengers — the capacity that allows it to schedule flights to many destinations — also contribute to its problems, says Stephen Van Beek of LeighFisher, a transportation management consulting firm. “They have service to destinations that most airports can only pray for,” he says. “But it is not a new facility, so it has challenges.”

Van Beek says the top priority for airports seeking to improve on-time performance is to ensure that runways, gates, alleyways and parking positions on the airfield make it easier “to move an airplane through the airport.” For a landlocked facility such as O’Hare, he says, that’s not easy.

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