As a frequent traveller, currently in Taipei, I agree that there are several cities that ORD needs direct links to. I would also ask why not Singapore, I know UAL fly NRT, HNK to Singapore as well as BKK. But I heard that Emirates is looking into ORD as is Thai Airways. They are just waiting for aircraft delivery. UAL, prior to 9/11 had non-stop to Santiago and there was talk about bringing it back. I always had same question about Moscow as well as Athens. If there is flight to Istanbul, Athens would be possible. Also Quantas few years ago announced service Melbourne to ORD but never took off due to SARS.

Probably Moscow, although I'd like to blow my savings on a ticket with Emirates.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...l=chi-news-hed

O'Hare regains No. 1 title

By John McCormick
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 3, 2006, 11:31 AM CDT

After dropping behind Atlanta in 2005, Chicago again holds the distinction of having the nation's busiest airport— at least for the first six months of this year.

O'Hare recorded 477,001 flights, putting it ahead of Atlanta even though both airports saw modest declines from a year ago, according to the latest Federal Aviation Administration data.

The declines came amid an increasingly competitive environment that is forcing airlines to cram more passengers on fewer flights and otherwise trim expenses.

Through the first six months of 2006, O'Hare saw a 1.3 percent decline in traffic from the same period a year earlier, while Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport's was down by 5 percent, to 472,431, the FAA reported. Traffic at the nation's No. 3 airfield, Dallas-Ft. Worth, fell by 2.1 percent to 348,434.

Chicago's Midway Airport — a hub for Southwest Airlines — saw an increase in traffic of 3.1 percent, recording 145,377 flights, roughly one-third the size of O'Hare's traffic.

^^ Does anyone really regard this as an important title?

I mean, it's great as an economic engine for the area. But the only people who seem to know this statistic outside of this forum are people either living in chicago or atlanta.

ORD probably won't stay on top for the rest of the year given the opening of ATL's fifth runway last month, but regardless of any of that jazz, these numbers possibly indicate the effect of operations caps that have been put on both airports, plus airlines trimming down their operations due to an increase in fuel prices and other financial reasons. Delta's bankruptcy is probably a big reason behind ATL's decline and UAL is only now out of Chapter 11, so they're not exactly out of the woods yet.

I was fortunate to travel with Emirates from Dubai to Singapore, wow what service. I was on business trip, so my savings were intact, but I could not believe the level of service and comfort of this flight.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...localnorth-hed

City details plans for moving graves
Cemetery is in path of O'Hare expansion

By Virginia Groark
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 1, 2006

Chicago does not have permission to take possession of St. Johannes Cemetery, but that didn't prevent city officials Monday from outlining their plan to move more than 1,000 graves from the DuPage County burial grounds by Feb. 1, 2008.

The 157-year-old cemetery sits on the southwest edge of O'Hare International Airport, and the city wants to relocate the graves to make room for a runway as part of its $15 billion airfield expansion.

But with two legal battles pending, the city is not allowed to take title to the graveyard or disturb it until the federal courts rule, even though bids are due Sept. 19. Chicago is soliciting bids for grave relocation because it wants to move quickly if it prevails in court.

Still, city officials said they want to proceed with respect. In a meeting near O'Hare on Monday with funeral directors, archeologists and grave-relocation experts, city officials said contractors should not walk in the burial ground, located about a half-mile north of Irving Park Road. They also reminded the group that people continue to visit the graves.

"The cemetery will continue to be active throughout the relocation," said James Chilton, south airfield project manager for the O'Hare Modernization Program.

But officials from St. John's United Church of Christ, the cemetery's caretaker, said it's premature for the city to be soliciting bids. Even if Chicago prevails in court, relocating graves is a complex theological task that should be worked out by the church and relatives of those who are buried, not the city, said Bob Sell, a church spokesman.

"The church has rites of burial," he said. "It does not have rites of unburial."

The graveyard is the final resting place of several 19th Century religious leaders, which helped earn it historic status. There are between 1,400 and 1,600 graves, of which about 900 are clearly marked with monuments. The remainder are unmarked, designated by crosses without names or marked by difficult-to-read monuments, city officials said.

Identifying remains is critical because the city intends to have a person assigned to relatives of each buried person to accommodate their requests. The original markers must be moved with the graves, and a funeral director must be present at each exhumation, city officials said.

Cemeteries have been moved for other public works projects, such as the expansion of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and the Eisenhower Expressway, but the process is a sensitive one. The St. Johannes project would be even more complicated because the caskets are so old, they probably have disintegrated, making it more difficult to remove remains, according to one cemetery relocation expert who declined to give his name.

Although relatives will make the decisions on where the remains are be moved, the city has developed a list of 12 cemeteries in the city and suburbs that have space.

Randall Leise, superintendent of Bethania Cemetery in Justice, attended the conference Monday, handing out a color booklet about the south suburban 19th Century graveyard, which is on the city's list. Leise said Bethania resembles St. Johannes, with markers and monuments dating to the same time and bearing similar family names. There is one difference.

"Bethania presents a more tranquil environment--without overhead flight or disturbances of any kind," the brochure states.

O'Hare expansion survives legal challenge

By Jon Hilkevitch
Tribune transportation reporter
Published August 4, 2006, 4:00 PM CDT


Chicago's plan to uproot a 157-year-old religious cemetery and demolish hundreds of suburban homes that are in the way of expanding O'Hare International Airport survived today one of its last legal challenges.

The 2-1 decision in Chicago's favor by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., leaves O'Hare expansion opponents with one remaining appeal still pending in a lower court, barring any additional filings.

The city cannot relocate graves in St. Johannes Cemetery until the legal action is wrapped up. It can, however, continue to buy homes and other properties it needs in Bensenville for the airport expansion, though the village is refusing to issue demolition permits.

The three-judge Court of Appeals panel today essentially said the Federal Aviation Administration cannot be held liable for violating the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act because the O'Hare expansion is a Chicago project.

The FAA last year approved the city's plan for new runways and pledged more than $300 million in federal funding.

The FAA agreed with the city to reject an alternate airfield layout for O'Hare expansion that would not have required relocating up to 1,600 graves at St. Johannes, which is on the southwest edge of O'Hare.

The appeals court said the FAA played a "peripheral role" in the matter.

"The city -- not the FAA -- is the cause of any burden on religious exercise because of its role as inventor, organizer, patron and builder of the O'Hare expansion … and at the end of the day, the city will carry out the seizure and physical relocation of St. Johannes Cemetery," the court ruling said.

O'Hare expansion opponents had argued the city's plan to move the graves violated the federal religious freedom law and could prevent "the physical resurrection" of people buried there.

Rosemarie Andolino, chief of the O'Hare expansion for the city, said today's court ruling knocked down one of the final legal obstacles to the $15 billion airport plan. She said construction is continuing, and the city plans to open the first new runway, on the north part of the airfield, in 2008.

Airport expansion opponents involved in the litigation—Bensenville, Elk Grove Village and St. John's United Church of Christ—continue to press their case in another lawsuit pending in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In that suit, attorneys for St. John's, which owns St. Johannes Cemetery, claim Chicago is violating state law as well as the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment's free exercise clause.

They are challenging legislation that the Illinois General Assembly passed in 2003 that specifically exempted St. Johannes and nearby Rest Haven Cemetery from the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The city subsequently said it would not need the Rest Haven land for new runways, though the city has reserved the right to change its decision.

Bensenville and Elk Grove Village also have asserted a number of other claims before the 7th Circuit.

The villages are asking the court to prohibit the demolition of more than 600 homes, businesses and parks in the two municipalities because of what they consider a strong likelihood that O'Hare expansion may not be fully carried out.

The villages point to a lack of financial commitment to the full project by the airline industry, as well as insufficient city bonding and federal funding to complete the $15 billion project.

^ It's entertaining to see Chicago slap Bensenville around like the little shrew of a town that it is

The WD city council is a bunch of raving idiots with mental issues. I know them all personally. They'll be wanting to quit SOC one week, and be their strongest supporters the next.

There aren't enough curse words in te english language to give my opinion of Frank Williams.

This is getting sad now and I don't understand why this continues to go on anymore.

:whip: Let's do the surprise midnight bulldoze attacks and be done with it!

Why not hold Elk Grove Village and Bensenville liable for those $272 million in land acquisition overruns? Take those sh!ts to the cleaners.

Then we'll have criminal defendants reimburse the state for prosecuting them.


The price tag alone suggests the fight was anything but frivilous.

^ Their fight has cost the region and the city hundreds of millions of dollars, even more if you consider the longer term economic consequences of higher construction costs and delaying the economic benefit of the completed expansion. As a taxpayer, this upsets me.

There's huge implications to what you're saying.

Shifting legal fees to the losing side discourages assertions of legal rights for fear of being stuck with not just your own bill, but someone else's.

Don't you feel like Bensenville and Elk Grove, at the very least, had the right to argue their case in Court? That's a fundumental right in a democratic society. And yes we do pay a price for fundumental rights. It would be a lot easier to throw criminals in jail without a trial for cost reasons too.

The City had every reason to believe legal fees would be really high for this kind of project. It's their failure to plan that's really costing the tax payers and the airlines.

Yes, legal fees should be (and are) fare game to be awarded in a civil judgement!

How could this project NOT be over budget! The bills will keep piling up until this issue is resolved. Not being from Chicago I may not know all the facts but I am surprised at the number of people upset with home owners from the small towns involved. How many of you would be arguing fighting if this was your neighbourhood. What if Midway had been expanded. There are lots of homes businesses there that could be bulldozed.
The airport will expand the houses/cemeteries will be bulldozed and Chicago will have an expanded airport eventually. And in 10-20 years you can go through it all again when the next expansion is started.
Maybe a new airport farther out even on the south side would be a better idea. Too late now.

That is right, if your not from Chicago you do not know how annoying the suburbs fighting this expansion are. First of all, the airport was here before these homes and businesses that need to be bought. The reason these suburbs have grown is O'Hare. The major reason many small business located in these towns is because of O'Hare. The jack ass mayers of these suburbs are not white knights, rather they are concerned with tax revenue loss. They are so damned narrow minded they do not see how much and expanded O'Hare will benefit their villages.

Technically speaking, ORD expansion is being paid for out of passenger fees and bonds, no taxpayer money. This airport infrastructure is here and is a boon to the airlines serving this market. Peotone is still moving forward via private venture, but with no major airlines commiting to Peotone why waste money and farmland

The city is already condemning and buying properties around Midway to expand clear zone at end of runways.

BTW- In the USA we have moved cemetaries for railroads, highways etc all in the name of Federal Interstate Commerce, well guess what airports fall under this.

So nothing personal, cry me a river about the throngs of people losing their homes. Maost of these people have received above market offers for their homes. If your so attached to your home, jack it up and move it.

What if the courts ruled in favor of the cemetery? Would you feel that Chicago should pay the legal costs of the opponents?

$630,000 for the cemetery? That is ridiculously little, and so is the $10 for the Bensenville city property. Some of you just want the airport expansion to be done no matter who is harmed or who's property is condemned.

The whole thing is political. Chicago has a big bully mayor, and Chicago and the surrounding areas have influential congressmen and statehouse members. Expansion of another airport would have had far less resistance and cost far less in land aquisition. Gary is close by with a lot of vacant surrounding land. Resistance to expansion of Gary is little. Travel to the Gary airport from the Loop takes less time than travel to O'Hare. But it is not in Illinois, so it isn't considered much.

There is an expansion project at the Gary airport, but it isn't increasing the size much.