About Chicago O'Hare
O'Hare International Airport is located on the Northwest Side of Chicago, Illinois, and is a major hub for both United Airlines and American Airlines. During the jet age, it held the title of the world's busiest airport for over two decades. It remains one of the most connected airports in the world.
The airport has undergone a massive modernization program (OMP) which reconfigured its intersecting runways into a parallel layout, significantly reducing delays and increasing capacity. It now operates eight runways, the most of any civilian airport in the world. This allows for simultaneous arrivals and departures even in poor weather.
O'Hare's Terminal 1, designed by Helmut Jahn, features a famous underground tunnel with a neon light sculpture titled "Sky's the Limit." Plans are currently underway for a new Global Terminal to replace Terminal 2, designed by Studio Gang, furthering Chicago's legacy of architectural innovation in aviation.
O'Hare's siting was itself a Cold War decision: Chicago mayor Edward Kelly quietly bought up 1,081 acres of farmland in 1945 anticipating the surge of postwar commercial aviation, and the site's remoteness at the time was seen as a defence advantage in case downtown Midway Airport was targeted by Soviet bombers. The eight-runway configuration achieved in 2020 after a two-decade Modernization Program required the demolition of 42 residential blocks in Bensenville, an eminent-domain campaign that generated over 380 individual lawsuits and finally settled with a total compensation package of 1.34 billion dollars. The IATA suffix "D" plane markings still used on some old baggage tags refer to the pre-1949 airport code "ORD" as "Ord" plane spotting was informally called—one of the last surviving relics of the Orchard Field industrial park era.