Chicago O'Hare Expansion Plans
As the world's second busiest airport, O'Hare has its share of delays. According to some reports, it has the most delays of all major airports in the United States. Because of the sheer volume of air traffic it handles, this is understandabl yet not acceptable to authorities, who have committed to a major expansion of O'Hare airport in order to reduce delays and at the same time handle more traffic.
The Federal Aviation Administration approved in 2005 a plan by the City of Chicago to expand O'Hare Airport's capacity by 60% and reduce the incidence of delays by 79%. The project would cost an estimated $6 billion, and involves the addition of more terminals and a reconfiguration of the runways. Two runways will be decommissioned and four will be added. The end result will be an airfield configuration similar to that of the airport in Dallas, with an 8-runway parallel configuration.
As a result of this expansion, Chicago O'Hare will once again become the busiest airport in the world, handling the largest volume of air traffic and also vastly improving its current record of on-time departures and arrivals.