O'Hare congestion may persist for next 7 years of construction, report says

An aging O'Hare Airport may continue to face low satisfaction ratings and sky high taxi times over the next seven years of terminal construction unless the city takes additional measures to address congestion, according to a new report.

O'Hare is the last American airport, among the 25 largest, to go without a new terminal in the last quarter century, according to a paper released Wednesday by DePaul University's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development.

And the airport will seem increasingly outdated compared to its peers until new two satellite terminals open in 2030 and a new Global Terminal in 2033, according to the report's main author and Chaddick Institute director Joe Schwieterman.

Some parts of O'Hare's Terminals 2 and 3 date to 1962, according to the paper. Terminal 5 was built in 1993.

O'Hare's age is only part of its recent problems.

The airport is busier than ever. Taxi times lead the nation. And passengers have rated the airport lower each year, according to the latest JD Power survey. Those frustrations have been compounded by ongoing terminal construction that began in 2025.

The DePaul report recommends city aviation officials take these steps to increase capacity and minimize the impact of construction:

Among them:

• Move more flights to the underused Terminal 5
• Use modular technology to build parts of the terminal off-site.
• Consider boarding flights away from the current terminals using cutting-edge mobile terminal technology.

How did O'Hare fall so far behind its peers in failing to build a new terminal?

Chalk it up to delays, followed by airlines balking at cost concerns after the COVID-19 pandemic, Schwieterman said.

"Nobody envisioned it would be more than a quarter century before we had a large new terminal," Schwieterman said, noting that the terminal project has faced delays since it began in 2001. The paper credits the city for recently speeding up the construction timeline.

The Chicago Department of Aviation, which is leading construction, said in a statement that the report's recommendations "would require detailed operational and engineering evaluation in consultation with our airline, federal and construction partners."

The Aviation Department noted that the terminal construction follows a 16-year runway modernization program that ended in 2021. O'Hare has eight runways, more than any commercial airport in the world. The department said it is sequencing construction to limit impacts and address taxi times, and that it is minimizing construction impacts on passengers.

The construction is happening at a tough time at O'Hare.

Plane traffic has increased over the past few years as O'Hare became a larger hub for both United Airlines and American Airlines. The two companies have booked so many flights, in a competition for more gates, that the Federal Aviation Administration capped the number of flights at O'Hare. It's still a question if the FAA continues the cuts into next year.

And terminal construction has increased already long airplane taxi times, according to Schwieterman's analysis. Outbound taxi times have 22 minutes in 2023 to 28 minutes this year. Over the same period, the average taxi time at the top 30 airports grew by a minute and a half to 20 minutes. That's why it is important the city undertakes steps to lessen the pain for passengers, he said.

Modular construction techniques, which some of the construction work is moved off-site, could lessen the impact on delays. The paper points to a contractor at Dallas/Fort Worth International to placed six gates in two weeks.

Some flights could be boarded away from the current terminals. But instead of shuttles, like how other airports do it, Schwieterman suggests using next-generation mobile terminals from Eero Nexus. The company claims the movable terminals can move 100 people at a time.

O'Hare could also book more flights out of Terminal 5, which was used by Southwest Airlines until last summer. The terminal is harder to reach from the main terminals, but access could be improved by adding shuttled buses to and from Terminal 3.