Interesting. . . maybe I'm misinterpreting the data from here:

https://www.flightsfrom.com/ORD

I'm know nothing - or next to nothing - about airline stuffs, but as I travel quite a bit it's always an adjacent topic of interest. . .

. . .

Yeah, Pearson definitely has more flights, but the planes are smaller than the ones that go to London.

a 777 holds 2 - 3x the # of passengers of a 737.

^I see. . . that makes sense. . .

. . .

Frontier Airlines returns to Midway

“Frontier Airlines is returning to Midway Airport for the first time since 2015.

The discount carrier, which moved its Chicago operations to O’Hare International Airport several years ago, will operate flights from Midway to 10 cities, beginning in April. The Denver-based airline will reduce its service at O’Hare to four cities from its current schedule, shifting service to several cities to Midway.”

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/airl...returns-midway

Good.... Free up some space for better airlines. Frontier isn't the worst, but it's pretty low on the pole for me.

Southwest moves some ops to ORD for the first time ever.

Then Frontier moves some ops back to MDW, after abandoning it 7 years ago.

An odd game of airport musical chairs by the LCCs.

This gives me the slightest glimmer of hope that ATA's beautiful 757's will be making a comeback at Midway any time now.

It is interesting that Frontier is not moving any of their international flights from ORD to MDW. I wonder if the international gates at MDW are at capacity?

If they can free up international gate space, I could also see the new Icelandic LLC (Play) flying their A320s into MDW if they choose to launch flights to Chicago. I also think MDW could be a good fit for the new Anchorage based LLC (Northern Pacific Airways) to fly their fleet of 757-200 when they finally launch.

The biggest problem with MDW is that it is bursting at the seams. Without additional gate space, there is little hope for increased services at the airport. I think Delta would benefit nicely from consolidating their operations to ORD once they relocate to Terminal 5. This could possibly free up a little gate space at MDW.

Several cancellations due to the 5G rollouts. KLM, British, Emirates and several others have cancelled flights to ORD. British cancelled one flight and added 787-10 service for the first time. Since several phone companies will delay the 5G rollout near airports the airlines should be back to normal by the end of the week.

Looks like those airlines have added back their flights. It seems like the 777 was the most affected aircraft from the 5G rollout in the US.

Cool old video from the mid 1960's. They take off on what used to be called 32L, now no longer in use.

That DC8 is an early straight jet water injected noise and smoke maker. These aircraft would rattle the windows off your house.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNddSNlPigw

I wouldn't really consider Southwest a LCC the way Frontier, Spirit, Allegiant, etc. are. They have a vastly different business model than the legacy carriers but they're not really low-cost.

Yeah. If anything, I've actually found Southwest to usually be more expensive than even the Big 3 Legacy carriers. They are hardly "low-cost" anymore.

O'Hare Terminal 5 Expansion - New Interior Renderings
 

HOK just added some new renderings of the Terminal 5 Expansion Project at O'Hare to the gallery on their website (Some of these are familiar while others are new). What do you think?

https://304ljw4amcep3ali496xph6b-wpe...-1600x1069.jpg

https://304ljw4amcep3ali496xph6b-wpe...-1600x1069.jpg

https://304ljw4amcep3ali496xph6b-wpe...-1536x1027.jpg

https://304ljw4amcep3ali496xph6b-wpe...-1536x1027.jpg

https://304ljw4amcep3ali496xph6b-wpe...-1536x1027.jpg

https://304ljw4amcep3ali496xph6b-wpe...-1536x1027.jpg

https://304ljw4amcep3ali496xph6b-wpe...-1600x1069.jpg

https://www.hok.com/projects/view/ch...l-5-expansion/

what an incredible video!... love the shots of Ohare with the old international terminal under construction...

That is quite a hike to that last gate!

Probably close to the same distance from the curb as the farthest gates in T1. I mean it would have been nice to have a new landslide facility and ATS stop at the addition but that would certainly cost a lot (deal with ATS curve, reconfigure roads, etc). I understand why they're not doing it.

I'd love to see O'Hare invest in some proper moving-walkway tech like this one at Toronto-Pearson... Unfortunately I see fewer and fewer of these in new airport terminals. CTA even ripped out the one that used to be in the Orange Line connector.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvfF4TeXz7U

Those images show Airbus A 380's. They stopped production on them, not sure O'Hare would see many. Only like 250 were ever built and half of all the jets are with Emirates which does not fly into Chicago too often mainly to and from Dubai.

The A 380 was a colossal financial loss.

BTW how many Air control Towers will O'Hare have? I've never seen so many at a singular airport or perhaps I wasn't paying attention.