CHICAGO: ORD & MDW discussion

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

Great news on Air New Zealand!!

Maybe this will push Qantas and Singapore to start direct flights to ORD faster. Singapore does have cargo 747 flights and did fly the 1 stop service via Europe with a 777 a few years ago but nothing direct. Qantas has never had direct service other than blocked seats on AA. Little by little this will eat away at the west coast hubs. The 787 and A350 are international east and west coast hub busters due to their range on Asian and African routes.

" Air New Zealand Taipei and Chicago services, which both operate thrice weekly, will be upgraded to five weekly due to significant success on the routes. The upgrades will take place from the Winter. "

https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/air-...seoul-flights/

with the good news comes some bad news.

Avianca is pulling out of O'hare entirely, ending non-stop service to Bogota and Guatemala City this summer.

that will leave ORD with non-stop service to only one SA city: Sao Paulo on United.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by sentinel

Holy cow. This really drives home how much more room there's going to be in that place once it's expanded. It looks like triple the total volume from this rendering.

[Steely Dan]

another new international route for ORD has been approved by the USDT!

Chicago - Chengdu via Hainan Airlines.

Chengdu is deep into the interior of china. currently all of ORD's flights to china serve more coastal markets (beijing, shanghai, & hong kong).

no word on when service might start.

https://twitter.com/airlineroute/sta...816861185?s=21

[galleyfox]

http://studiogang.com/project/ohare-...lobal-terminal

It's interesting to see the pictures paired with the sectional diagram of the terminal.

Also, arriving and departing passengers are segregated on different levels as they go from landslide to airside and vice versa.
International arrivals travel via the second story sterile corridor to customs which is next to baggage claim, while domestic passengers travel via ground level.

It also looks like the retail roofs are doubling as the floor for the sterile corridor in some sections, but I could be seeing that wrong...

Overall, I have to say that Studio ORD's design excels at crowd control and foot traffic flow.

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

with the good news comes some bad news.

Avianca is pulling out of O'hare entirely, ending non-stop service to Bogota and Guatemala City this summer.

that will leave ORD with non-stop service to only one SA city: Sao Paulo on United.

They are chopping a lot because they are in trouble and have sold off their EMB fleet. Hope someone else replaces them on atleast 1 of these routes.


https://qcostarica.com/avianca-suspe...lombia-and-us/

[bnk]

...

[Steely Dan]

just keeping some tabs on upcoming changes in ORD's international service:



adds:

Puerto Vallarta - seasonally on Volaris (starts May 5th) - UA, AA, and Frontier all currently fly to PV seasonally from ORD

Athens - seasonally on AA (starts May 10th)

Chengdu - on Hainan (starts May 10th)

Lisbon - on TAP (starts June 1st)

Barcelona - seasonally on Norwegian (starts on june 7th) - AA currently flies to Barcelona seasonally from ORD

Querétaro, Mexico - on Volaris (starts on June 16th) - Volaris currently flies this route out of MDW, but is switching it over to ORD

Tel Aviv - on El Al (starts March 22nd, 2020)



deducts:

Bogota - Avianca (ends on May 1st)

Guatemala City - Avianca (ends on June 1st) - AA will continue to fly to Guatemala City from ORD




while the Bogota loss is not cool, on balance the new international pick-ups are a very big net positive for ORD.

[J_M_Tungsten]

Not an exact comparison, but you get the idea.

Ugh, photobombed by photobucket

[chiphile]

Foster was my first choice because of the airfield views - I really hated Gang's design because it was all about the interior. It's a fantastic interior no doubt, but the airfield facing windows are short and it doesn't seem like aircraft will be visible from a distance unless you're at the gate. I can tolerate feeling like I'm in a mall, as long as I see the planes.

The planes that will park at terminal 2 will be the greatest feats of aviation engineering, they will be the largest planes used for international flight, and they will carry flags from all over the world.

The aircraft should be seen and celebrated - the airport is about THEM -magnificent ships that traverse the world at unimaginable speed and height. Instead, Gang made the airport about her/her team, or about trees and wood, or whatever the hell they were thinking of - but it sure wasn't aviation. Terminal 2's location near the two most active parallel runways would've been great to see simultaneous takeoffs and landings as well.

Gang missed an opportunity to capture the grandeur of aviation. As domestic flight has become a miserable experience, international trips, and the aircraft that make those trips, are the last remaining experiences in civil aviation that still carry some golden age romance to them. Studio ORD doesn't capture any of it.

[Via Chicago]

i fully agree. Foster of all the proposals was really the only one that tried to at least rekindle and honor the romance and nostalgia of air travel, and tried to forge a connection between the traveler and what it was they were actually participating in. who needs CNN blathering at the loading gates when you can disconnect from that nonsense entirely and just enjoy the simple childlike pleasure of watching planes takeoff and land. thats why i voted for it as well. it directed itself, and the air traveler, outward rather than inward. im still fairly bummed thats not the one we'll be getting. i think it had the most potential to truly set itself apart as something really unique and showstopping on the global stage. Gang's design i just dont feel reaches those heights, and at the end of the day will just blend into the background as a "new modern terminal" in a sea of new modern terminals but without anything super declarative to say about itself, especially in the context of aviation. it ticks the boxes of everything the selection committee wanted, but dosent rise above that in the intangible way that great works of architecture do.

[patrick84]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

just keeping some tabs on upcoming changes in ORD's international service:



adds:

Puerto Vallarta - seasonally on Volaris (starts May 5th) - UA, AA, and Frontier all currently fly to PV seasonally from ORD

Athens - seasonally on AA (starts May 10th)

Chengdu - on Hainan (starts May 10th)

Lisbon - on TAP (starts June 1st)

Barcelona - seasonally on Norwegian (starts on june 7th) - AA currently flies to Barcelona seasonally from ORD

Querétaro, Mexico - on Volaris (starts on June 16th) - Volaris currently flies this route out of MDW, but is switching it over to ORD

Tel Aviv - on El Al (starts March 22nd, 2020)



deducts:

Bogota - Avianca (ends on May 1st)

Guatemala City - Avianca (ends on June 1st) - AA will continue to fly to Guatemala City from ORD




while the Bogota loss is not cool, on balance the new international pick-ups are a very big net positive for ORD.

Alitalia also starts seasonal to FCO May 29. It runs through Sept 24.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by patrick84

Alitalia also starts seasonal to FCO May 29. It runs through Sept 24.

that's an existing seasonal route.

i was only listing new international routes for ORD.

[Via Chicago]

i was pretty close to doing that new Lisbon route. during the times i was looking to go in August it was simply much cheaper to do a layover, but if you go in October its seriously affordable (like $600 round trip)

[chiphile]

Column: An escalating problem: Jeanne Gang's O'Hare design looks anything but stress-free, especially for wheelchair users


By Blair Kamin
Chicago Tribune
April 4, 2019

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...406-story.html

"Gang proposes to have departing travelers ride up escalators to a raised check-in and security floor, then take escalators down to gate level."

---

Studio ORD's design is looking more like a total clusterf*** and Kamin is trying to sink it. I hope he does.

Has she ever been on an international flight or stood in line to check in bags? International passengers, especially families, have carts loads of luggage when they are checking in. A family of four with 2 kids and six suitcases going to get dropped off will have to wait in the most massively backlogged elevator line, ever, because the elevator will be the only way to get those luggage carts up to that level, especially with kids.

The most basic principle of any design is to NOT have to do that with luggage carts.

What a joke. Lightfoot needs to re-open the process, OR select the plan that was done by a real, accomplished, airport terminal design firm (foster).

It boggles me how disconnected these architects are from reality, and the fact that they couldn't hire an airport consultant to come up with practical considerations.

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by patrick84

Alitalia also starts seasonal to FCO May 29. It runs through Sept 24.

That's good to know. Let make it happens.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by chiphile

Column: An escalating problem: Jeanne Gang's O'Hare design looks anything but stress-free, especially for wheelchair users


By Blair Kamin
Chicago Tribune
April 4, 2019

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...406-story.html

"Gang proposes to have departing travelers ride up escalators to a raised check-in and security floor, then take escalators down to gate level."

---

Studio ORD's design is looking more like a total clusterf*** and Kamin is trying to sink it. I hope he does.

Has she ever been on an international flight or stood in line to check in bags? International passengers, especially families, have carts loads of luggage when they are checking in. A family of four with 2 kids and six suitcases going to get dropped off will have to wait in the most massively backlogged elevator line, ever, because the elevator will be the only way to get those luggage carts up to that level, especially with kids.

The most basic principle of any design is to NOT have to do that with luggage carts.

What a joke. Lightfoot needs to re-open the process, OR select the plan that was done by a real, accomplished, airport terminal design firm (foster).

It boggles me how disconnected these architects are from reality, and the fact that they couldn't hire an airport consultant to come up with practical considerations.

Do you really believe any of these details are settled at this point? This is why I'm sick of Kamin, he should know that there are YEARS worth of actual design work to be done here. These are conceptual renderings, not bid drawings, the real design is just about to start.

[woodrow]

His point was that THIS design, which Gang discussed at length, was the one accepted. It isn't just conceptual, and even if it is, a MAJOR part of the design is the airy and open arrivals hall, which can only happen with raising the departure level.

That said, with the important exception of differently abled people, I think he is clutching his pearls a bit. He worries about not only those in wheelchairs and with other limits to mobility, but the general traveler. Well guess what? I am a general traveler and when I take the Blue Line I take THREE escalators or sets of stairs to get to the departure level.

I do think he doesn't like the Gang design generally and especially dislikes the selection process and is using his column to rile things up, which is irritating.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by woodrow

His point was that THIS design, which Gang discussed at length, was the one accepted. It isn't just conceptual, and even if it is, a MAJOR part of the design is the airy and open arrivals hall, which can only happen with raising the departure level.

That said, with the important exception of differently abled people, I think he is clutching his pearls a bit. He worries about not only those in wheelchairs and with other limits to mobility, but the general traveler. Well guess what? I am a general traveler and when I take the Blue Line I take THREE escalators or sets of stairs to get to the departure level.

I do think he doesn't like the Gang design generally and especially dislikes the selection process and is using his column to rile things up, which is irritating.

I agree. He fails to note that every. single. design. required escalators and elevators because O'Hare has at least 3 levels of infrastructure and that doesn't even include the CTA. There is no getting around that. Baggage Claim and pick-ups HAVE to go on the lower level. Drop-offs HAVE to enter on the upper level. Parking and CTA HAVE to use the skybridge on the 3rd level or the underground tunnel.

Every single disabled O'Hare traveler must change levels at some point in the process. The main advantage of the Gang design over others is that travelers are separated based on their direction of travel to ease congestion and collisions. And all the gates in T2 are equidistant from T1 and T3 gates.

Not to mention families with kids and lots of luggage tend to bring the family car, which means you either have to put ticketing on the skybridge level, or you force them to take an elevator down to the 2nd level.

[AMWChicago]

Originally Posted by woodrow

His point was that THIS design, which Gang discussed at length, was the one accepted. It isn't just conceptual, and even if it is, a MAJOR part of the design is the airy and open arrivals hall, which can only happen with raising the departure level.

That said, with the important exception of differently abled people, I think he is clutching his pearls a bit. He worries about not only those in wheelchairs and with other limits to mobility, but the general traveler. Well guess what? I am a general traveler and when I take the Blue Line I take THREE escalators or sets of stairs to get to the departure level.

I do think he doesn't like the Gang design generally and especially dislikes the selection process and is using his column to rile things up, which is irritating.

You hit the nail on the head.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by chiphile

Column: An escalating problem: Jeanne Gang's O'Hare design looks anything but stress-free, especially for wheelchair users


By Blair Kamin
Chicago Tribune
April 4, 2019

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...406-story.html

"Gang proposes to have departing travelers ride up escalators to a raised check-in and security floor, then take escalators down to gate level."

---

Studio ORD's design is looking more like a total clusterf*** and Kamin is trying to sink it. I hope he does.

Has she ever been on an international flight or stood in line to check in bags? International passengers, especially families, have carts loads of luggage when they are checking in. A family of four with 2 kids and six suitcases going to get dropped off will have to wait in the most massively backlogged elevator line, ever, because the elevator will be the only way to get those luggage carts up to that level, especially with kids.

The most basic principle of any design is to NOT have to do that with luggage carts.

What a joke. Lightfoot needs to re-open the process, OR select the plan that was done by a real, accomplished, airport terminal design firm (foster).

It boggles me how disconnected these architects are from reality, and the fact that they couldn't hire an airport consultant to come up with practical considerations.

This is ridiculous. Escalators are no huge issue for anyone but the disabled/mobility impaired, and there can be multiple elevators for that purpose. As for luggage, how about having a cart-escalator for baggage carts just like the supermarkets use when there is parking above or below the store? These aren't exactly a rare thing, you know.

The opinions laid out by Kamin are garbage.

Aaron (Glowrock)