I'm not sure there isn't more pressure on UA to keep its ORD fares in check if it has one big hub rival, AA, compared with having small presences of other carriers. Duopolies are bad, but often it's not difficult for an 800lb gorilla to squeeze competition by temporarily lowering fares or temporarily adding hourly flights, etc.

Also, there's benefit in Chicago business and travellers having easy access, via ORD as a hub, to both Star Alliance and Oneworld networks. Note that if Jet Blue and/or Virgin grow at ORD, they are (and/or are likely to be) Star Alliance carriers.

Besides, haven't the gate shortages already been alleviated to some extent, beginning to open the door to more entrants?

Very interesting.

Yeah, although isn't that all to the west of York - so it'll get to be its very own barrel of monkeys.

Posner and the Chicago School do not believe in price predation. Dumb asses. I agree with you. It is much easier to segregate and annihilate airlines that only have one or two destinations from O'hare as opposed to a hub of a gigantic alliance. Unless Jet Blue or Virgin grow quickly at O'Hare, reductions in AA will be a boon for the bottom line at United.

No, the bypass will run east of York and the railroad tracks. There's no room to the west without ripping out even more of Bensenville.

Since this stuff is within the Runway Protection Zone, everything has to be at-grade or lower, so there's a lot of earthmoving and overpasses. New UP alignment is blue. You can also see the new road into the cargo area.

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8464/oharesw.jpg

If you say so it must be true. You will see some reductions accross the system during the bankruptcy with Eagle picking up more flights after they come out of chapter 11.They went into chapter 11 with alot of money on hand. This is more about restructuring labor costs.

My Ohare terminal plan
 

Keeps most of the main terminal intact and solves three problems -
Adds more gates the core without adding new western access,
two- creates two way alley ways for better gate movement and on time departure.
three, rebuilds all the piers except for the newer UA - ones. Solves the problem of the narrow piers and 60s style waiting areas.

Also keeps the cross wind runway in place.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...r916/ohare.jpg

I honestly think it has more to do with restructuring debt. Sure pension will change but the rest of the labor costs are not way outside industry average. Meanwhile, they carry huge quantities of debt at unbelievably high interest rates.

They claim they pay 3/4ths of a billion a year more in labor costs that the other big US mainline carriers partly due to the pensions. They can also restructure some debt there is no doubt. The huge aircraft order they just placed for Boeing and Airbus already helped due to the very low prices they paid for the new aircraft. It will also allow them to replace the gas guzzling old aircraft they are farther behind replacing than most other major carriers. This is all based on public information supplied at the time of filing.

British Cargo brought their second 747-8F into ORD today. This is the third carrier to use the 747-8F at ORD along with Cargolux and Cathay Pacific. They have to park it at an angle by the old UAL cargo building since it is so long. We could really use the upgraded south cargo area now.

Happy Holidays

E-letter from Chicago Department of Aviation

United/Continental will upgrade Terminal 2 to provide new jet bridges to RJs, and expand the United club lounge.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,7327623.story

How many passengers will Chicago O'hare be able to process / year once fully built out? I'm talking about max capacity with O'Hare style operations?

Right now it is processing 60+ million? So, I assume we can say 100+ million?

If Heathrow can process 70+ million with 2 runways, if O'Hare used more wide bodies I'm sure the figures would be astronomical...correct?

LHR passengers 2010=65,884,143
Aircraft movements=450,000 (I rounded up from 449,000 something).
passengers per movement=146.4

ORD aircraft movements 2010=882,617
146.4*882,617=129,215,128

That includes cargo movements I think but the two airports have very similar cargo ton numbers.

You can't do that. Since you can't fit as many wide body movements into an airport as narrow bodies due to separation. Therefore, those movements for O'Hare that you are using would be lower giving a lower # for passenger figures.

Ok, so how many movements will O'Hare be able to process under full expansion given that we know that it has currently a massive capacity if larger planes were used. Actually, no expansion would be needed anytime soon if a Euro or Asian hub style operation was used given that the max capacity is well over 100+million, correct?

Also, LHR was around 70mil for 2011. Those figures are out of date. When will we see US 2011 figures?

AA and AE will have a large flight increase up to last summers levels at ORD in April and another increase in June. UAL will also be increasing flights this summer at ORD. A 787 landed at ORD early this morning. It was doing route proving for JAL.


Also they are deep into building the north runways connecting taxiway that feeds into tango behind the hangars. This will allow landings from the west on the north runway without crossing several other runways on taxi to the terminals.

^ AE? Is that right?

Also, is the consolidated car rental facility project in limbo or something?

American Airlines and American Eagle.

^ Oh. I was thinking only along IATA lines. Nice to hear the bankruptcy isn't resulting in net reductions at ORD.

The city had to get the rental agencies (and City Council) to agree to a new $8 fee. Having accomplished that, last September they gave the go-ahead for design to begin, and that process should take 9 months maximum.

My guess is that TranSystems (the chosen designers) will price out the CONRAC with and without an extension to the ATS system. The ATS extension might make the project more costly than the funds available from the $8 fee, so the extension would either need to be postponed or the fee raised. On the other hand, the ATS extension would allow (finally) for a direct connection to Metra and possibly Amtrak at the nation's second-busiest airport, so it might be a good candidate for a Federal grant.

Unfortunately Jesse Jackson Jr. just won the primary, which means we have to continue to deal with his bone-headed Peotone Airport boondoggle idea.

If Halvorson couldn't beat him now, when he's tarnished by the whole Blago thing and especially weak, then nobody can beat him until he dies or decides to resign.

On the other hand, this is adorable:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/...0-21072915.jpg
source