..
Some very good after news for O'Hare after some bouts of bad news lately.

Do we know if there have been any renderings of the 3-gate extension?

Indeed, but I hope these smaller scale projects aren't meant as diversionary tactics to soften a potential blow for the global hub possibly not moving forward, being shelved or even excessively VE'd :(

Maybe it's too much conjecture, but I look at this announcement optimistically, thinking things are getting hashed out behind the scenes.

The city would be wise to play hardball on Terminal 3 upgrades and improvements until AA is willing to indicate that they are to sign off on Terminal 2 funding. If the city is going full steam with T3 upgrades while AA is still intent on playing hardball, then the city's negotiations are much worse than I fear they could be.

Germane to this specific point, I was just part of a discussion about college football and media rights and someone presented the Nielsen Demographic Market Area data. These are rankings that Nielsen produces that assign metro areas business value by looking at size, income and demographics. This is essentially the same data airlines consider. Below are the top-12 U.S. DMAs. A couple things jump out. The top 3 markets are obvious. Atlanta, Philly, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle are more important than their population ranking would suggest. Houston, Dallas, Washington, Miami and Phoenix have less value to business than their size would suggest.


1 New York

2 Los Angeles

3 Chicago

4 Philadelphia

5 Dallas-Fort Worth

6 Atlanta

7 Houston

8 Washington-Hagerstown

9 Boston-Manchester

10 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose

11 Phoenix-Prescott

12 Seattle-Tacoma

Not to beat a dead horse, but given the HUGE money put into Terminal 5 and the resultant crap outcome (except for a few shiny new gates) I don't think a mere $200M will buy anything that qualifies as "very good news." O'Hare can't seem to re-tile bathrooms for that amount of money.

Those are shared regional gates.

You are right. They will likely be nothing much more than some cosmetic upgrades, but I am intrigued by the phrasing "Tripling the width of the passenger corridor between concourses K and L".

I am guessing that means the rather short distance between the concourses just beyond TSA and not the concourses themselves. In either case, I look forward to seeing that.

ORD Global Terminal Satellite Concourses
 

Just out of curiosity, when do you think we will get an update on the Satellite Concourses for the Global Terminal project? I know they've been reorganizing the gates on the south end of the C concourse so they must be breaking ground sometime soon? I thought I remember the timeline saying they would break ground either in 2023 or 2024. We also still haven't gotten any renderings for them.

Though maybe it's delayed/modified if American and United are fighting the project behind the scenes like the previously posted articles said.

Ground has definitely been broken as the area is full of construction equipment poking around. It's probably just preliminary infrastructure work though - drainage, electrical, plumbing, etc.

The way I read things, through a lot of digging, is they need to fill in the central airfield detention basin before they can build out the satellites....

https://ahcjv.com/wp-content/uploads...Conference.pdf

According to that PDF, work should have started late last year, but I don't see any award bids on the O'Hare 21 page:

https://ord21.com/bids/Pages/default.aspx

And all of the advertised bid solicitations are focused on the T3 improvements.

So..... Unless someone has some inside knowledge, it's really hard to the exact status of things, unless that detention basin work is indeed going on, and the O'Hare 21 page just hasn't been updated.

The detention pond is certainly not in the way of S-1, which is where I see most of the ground work being done (since it's actually visible from C concourse). But yea, super unclear what is actually going on.. which sadly is the norm with the CDA.

Well, and the only way anyone can confirm is by searching by bid award websites, or hoping your plane taxis close enough to this area to try to figure out what's going on.

Yeah, for sure, they could start work on S1, but I wasn't sure if they were going to do both at the same time, or one at a time. I was assuming they were going to do both at the same time.

On a side note - Hampton Social and Bar Siena are now open in T5, which is a welcome relief given the lack of dining options that were there. Below is an IG link showing Bar Siena.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C1uZU4LrSxx/

Aer Lingus Moves To Terminal 3 At Chicago O’Hare International Airport

“ Ireland’s flag carrier, Aer Lingus, will relocate its operations at Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 this week. The move is expected to “create a more efficient travel experience” as the airline will join its partner, American Airlines.

The Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) announced the development on January 17th, one week before the move on January 24th.

Aer Lingus currently offers service from ORD to its hub at Dublin Airport nine times weekly but will increase the service to 14 weekly frequencies in March, just before the busy travel season begins.“

https://simpleflying.com/aer-lingus-...ional-airport/

I'm actually surprised to see this - Mostly because Aer has partnerships with UA. If they moved to T1, that would make sense. This is in addition to the rumor British will be moving to T3 as well. This will free up a couple gates at T5, which could mean a couple new international carriers to enter T5.

On the expansion front, the powers that be are probably talking with AA/UA leaders to shore up some of the gaps in expansion costs:

https://www.dailyherald.com/20240121...minal-project/

What's a bit irritating is there is not a single quote from Johnson here. Like LF, he seems to be detached from modernization program at O'Hare.

United and Aer Lingus ended their (strange) partnership last year. Dublin also has CBP pre-clearance (you clear US customs at the Dublin airport instead of when you arrive in Chicago) so from that perspective this is no different than a domestic flight. Meaning it can both arrive and depart from T3, not just depart. It's rather strange they haven't been at T3 all this time...

I'm fairly new to all this aviation stuff. Is there any chance Aer Lingus might be joining OneWorld, especially with them seemingly cozying up with American in both Chicago and Philly?

Ahhh, Yes, I forgot about the customs situation. Yeah, in that case, makes total sense. And with the new stinger gates about to open, there's probably a little wiggle room over there now for a flight or too..... Especially with Spirit on shaky ground.

Aer Lingus is owned by IAG, (British Airway & Iberia), the are not a member OneWorld, but are part of the Oneworld joint venture with American, British Airways, Iberia and Finnair.

Their is always talk, rumors that Aer Lingus will rejoin Oneworld, but nothing concrete. :shrug:

UNITED AIRLINES ADDS CHICAGO – ATHENS SERVICE

“United will offer nonstop Chicago (ORD) – Athens (ATH) service this year during the peak summer travel period, with daily flights running May 23, 2024 through August 12.

With the addition of Athens this summer United will offer nonstop service from Chicago to 15 European cities, including:

Amsterdam (AMS)
Athens (ATH)
Barcelona (BCN)
Brussels (BRU)
Dublin (DUB)
Edinburgh (EDI)
Frankfurt (FRA)
London (LHR)
Paris (CDG)
Munich (MUC)
Milan (MXP)
Reykjavik (KEF)
Rome (FCO)
Shannon (SNN)
Zurich (ZRH)”

https://liveandletsfly.com/united-ai...hicago-athens/