# Why is O'Hare so uniquely screwed up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 13, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946 "2010-12-13T02:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/21 "2010-12-13T17:43:37Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@Implicit](#): > > > > You might be surprised to discover that Chicago O’Hare is the 2nd busiest airport in terms of aircraft landing and taking off… in the world. > > Meh, thats only 16,000 landings a week with 7 runways. Try flying into Oshkosh with 3 runways and 25,000 landings a week. And those two stats illustrate the alpha & omega of airport traffic measures. Both do not take into account the size of the planes or the passenger volume, which is quite different. [In the chart linked to earlier,](http://www.aci.aero/cda/aci_common/display/main/aci_content07_c.jsp?zn=aci&cp=1-5-54-57_666_2__) little Van Nuys airport in Los Angeles (VNY) is shown as having more activity than Mexico City or Boston, and not far behind some New York airports. But I doubt if a 747 could land in Van Nuys, which is strictly for small and private planes. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/22 "2010-12-13T17:49:38Z")
VNY is one of the most-developed and busiest general aviation fields in the world, hardly “little”. Its \*single \*main runway is 8000 feet long, while a 747 requires about 10,000. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/23 "2010-12-13T18:16:21Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Thi is very common, actually. McGee-Tyson is the “Knoxville” Airport, but it’s located in an unincorporated area 20 minutes from town near Alcoa and Maryville. Sea-Tac is nomially the “Seattle” airport, but it’s actually located entirely in Tacoma, and well away from Seattle. Cincinnati, Ohio’s airport is actually in northern Kentucky, about 20-30 minutes from the city, depending on traffic. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/24 "2010-12-13T18:43:02Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > ETA: Oh, and the airports aren’t in the same city at all, actually. Yeah, I know that’s what it says on your tickets, but Midway’s in the southern end of Chicago, and O’Hare is off in the western suburb of Des Plaines…ish. The signs aren’t so good out that way. But not in Chicago proper, by any stretch. They’re 45 minutes’ drive apart on a good day, well over an hour in heavy traffic. To nitpick, O’Hare and Midway are technically both within Chicago city limits. [As you can see](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Chicago_districts_map.png), O’Hare is something of an island off the northwest corner of the city, but it _is_ officially part of Chicago. And while it’s true there’s not a convenient route between them by car, the two are only about 20 miles apart as the crow flies. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/25 "2010-12-13T18:46:23Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > To nitpick, O’Hare and Midway are technically both within Chicago city limits. [As you can see](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Chicago_districts_map.png), O’Hare is something of an island off the northwest corner of the city, but it _is_ officially part of Chicago. > > And while it’s true there’s not a convenient route between them by car, the two are only about 20 miles apart as the crow flies. Yeah, i also don’t really understand why some people think it’s so significant that some city airports are technically outside city limits. Do you expect these airports to be located downtown, next to the tall buildings? It doesn’t change the fact that the airports serve the cities that they’re next to. And it should also be pretty obvious to anyone who thinks about it why it might be best to have some physical separation between two places where large aircraft fly in and out. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/26 "2010-12-13T18:53:35Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > You have to understand airlines use the “Spoke” model for flights. You have to think of it like spokes on a wheel. They route everything through a “hub.” For instance, Delta has a main hub in Atlanta, NW had two major hubs in Detroit and Minneapolis and United has hubs in San Francisco and Denver. American in Dallas / Ft Worth. \ There is no Northwest Airlines. It’s all Delta. \ At the same time this brings up the conundrum that other airports cannot pick up slack because they are often at capacity themselves and may not even be able to service an airline with minimal to no presence at their location. For example, as correctly noted, O’Hare is a main hub for United. It’s kinda hard to reroute United traffic from O’Hare to MSP when United only has four gates assigned to that airline at MSP. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/27 "2010-12-13T19:57:29Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > VNY is one of the most-developed and busiest general aviation fields in the world, hardly “little”. Its \*single \*main runway is 8000 feet long, while a 747 requires about 10,000. This. I was under the impression that it’s a major cargo jet airport. From passing by it on the train every day, I would think it’s quite busy, 24-7. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/28 "2010-12-13T20:23:17Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > VNY is one of the most-developed and busiest general aviation fields in the world, hardly “little”. Its \*single \*main runway is 8000 feet long, while a 747 requires about 10,000. Any airport with only a single runway is little if you are using the number of runways as a measure of size. Most commercial, well-known airports have more than one. VNY is large if you use the number of takeoffs & landings. It is small if you use the number of passengers. It is probably large if you use freight tonnage, as **Belowjob2.0** points out. And that’s exactly my point. A facility can be declared big or little depending on how you define the criteria for size. ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/29 "2010-12-13T20:34:45Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Followup question: Why doesn’t Minneapolis et al take up some of the slack? MSP does take up the slack, but not in a way that would help O’Hare in this situation. It takes up the slack by serving as one of two major midwestern hubs for Delta, meaning that most Delta traffic that might be routed through ORD is instead routed via MSP (or DTW), reducing traffic at ORD. While that helps by balancing the load under normal conditions, as **Duckster** points out, it doesn’t help when, all of a sudden, United and American need to re-schedule and re-route hundreds of flights from ORD. MSP doesn’t have the capacity to absorb that much extra traffic, and American and United don’t have the facilities there to manage it. Nevertheless, the existence of MSP definitely does make the experience at ORD better than it otherwise would be. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/30 "2010-12-13T21:04:58Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > To nitpick, O’Hare and Midway are technically both within Chicago city limits. Midway’s not much of a technicality–it’s on the southwest side of the city, but there’s still two miles of city of the Chicago to the west of Midway. O’hare is a bit more of technicality. The details can be [found here](http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/924.html). > [@](#): > > In order to consolidate its control over the airport area, Chicago annexed it in March 1956, including the western edge, in DuPage County. Because legal incorporation required that annexed areas be contiguous with Chicago, the city council also annexed a narrow stretch of Higgins Road to connect the main body of the city with the airport. Concerned that this tie was too tenuous, Chicago overrode the objections of surrounding suburbs like Schiller Park, annexing the forest preserve areas named for Alexander Robinson and his wife in 1958 and exchanging Higgins Road for a wider stretch along Foster Avenue in 1961. The building of the Kennedy Expressway in the late 1950s further reinforced the link between air travelers and the Loop. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/31 "2010-12-13T21:09:13Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > O’hare is a bit more of technicality. The details can be [found here](http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/924.html). LOL. My Garmin doesn’t even try. The “city” field when I drive by O’Hare is simply blank. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/32 "2010-12-13T21:11:02Z")
But in this specific case, MSP wouldn’t have been a better choice than ORD anyway - we’d dug out of that same storm just yesterday. Whole airport was closed Saturday, so MSP was dealing with those cancellations. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/33 "2010-12-13T21:29:53Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Sea-Tac is nomially the “Seattle” airport, but it’s actually located entirely in Tacoma, and well away from Seattle. Completely wrong. I could see you saying the city of Sea-Tac or Burien then I could understand the error but SeaTac is in fact in [Seattle](http://www.airwise.com/airports/us/seatac/index.html). ---
**Author:** ![TheFifthYear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@TheFifthYear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFifthYear)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/34 "2010-12-13T22:46:58Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Completely wrong. I could see you saying the city of Sea-Tac or Burien then I could understand the error but SeaTac is in fact in [Seattle](http://www.airwise.com/airports/us/seatac/index.html). Wikipedia says it is in the city of Seatac and your own link says it is 13 miles south of Seattle. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/35 "2010-12-14T00:13:00Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Thi is very common, actually. McGee-Tyson is the “Knoxville” Airport, but it’s located in an unincorporated area 20 minutes from town near Alcoa and Maryville. Sea-Tac is nomially the “Seattle” airport, but it’s actually located entirely in Tacoma, and well away from Seattle. Even a cursory glance at a map will show that Sea-Tac (actually located in a town named Seatac) is significantly closer to Seattle than to Tacoma. You can get there from downtown Seattle in maybe 20 minutes (if the road isn’t jammed). ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/36 "2010-12-14T01:04:58Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > But according to the same site, not one other airport in the upper midwest - not one, not a big one, not a small one - is experiencing substantial delays. Not even Midway, which is in the same damned city. But Minneapolis/St. Paul did have delays. My aunt flew out Sunday noon from MSP; her flight was delayed nearly 2 hours. And MSP was only about half working; roughly half of the flights were canceled. It just wasn’t as big a problem as O’Hare, because MSP isn’t nearly as busy. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/37 "2010-12-14T02:10:05Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Thi is very common, actually. McGee-Tyson is the “Knoxville” Airport, but it’s located in an unincorporated area 20 minutes from town near Alcoa and Maryville. Sea-Tac is nomially the “Seattle” airport, but it’s actually located entirely in Tacoma, and well away from Seattle. > [@TheFifthYear](#): > > Wikipedia says it is in the city of Seatac and your own link says it is 13 miles south of Seattle. Sea-Tac the airport was built in unincorporated land just south of Seattle, but still within the same county. In 1990, part of that region incorporated into the city of Seatac. It’s quite a bit closer to Seattle than Tacoma. It’s possibly 13 miles south of downtown Seattle, but it’s only about three miles from the southern border of Seattle. ---
**Author:** ![Waffle\_Decider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/77aa72/32.png) [@Waffle\_Decider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waffle_Decider)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/38 "2010-12-14T02:43:53Z")
The other thing is that, because the current airport configuration is the result of a number of extensions over the years and not planned up front, the runway configuration at ORD is very messed up. Although it currently has 7 runways, there are many restrictions on their utilization due to the way they cross each other and the possible routes to and from the terminals. Yesterday was close to the worst case scenario: Very strong wind out of the north, low ceiling, plus snow on the runway. For much of the morning, they were down to a single runway only (32R), and they were able to start departing from another runway (32L) in the afternoon. This was a very suboptimal configuration and severely restricted the airport acceptance rate. ---
**Author:** ![IAmNotSpartacus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/39 "2010-12-14T03:04:36Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Any airport with only a single runway is little if you are using the number of runways as a measure of size. Most commercial, well-known airports have more than one. Van Nuys has 2 runways. 1 main, 1 secondary. It covers 730 acres. Just thought some facts might be helpful. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/40 "2010-12-14T06:02:11Z")
Oh, my flight out of O’Hare was delayed today because nobody could find the pilot. No, seriously. It’s not that he was on a delayed flight. He simply wasn’t there. Apparently United has no backup pilots in their biggest hub, so the flight was cancelled. Luckily, I wormed my way onto another. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946.md?page=3)