CHICAGO: ORD & MDW discussion

[Tombstoner]

Originally Posted by twister244

... Meanwhile, Delta has a nice comfy home over in T5 where they have a really nice new lounge. Shit, even SouthWest has access to the shiny new wing of T5.

Quick comment and question: I would say that the Delta home in T5, apart from a nice lounge, is a dumpster-fire. The few new added gates are nice and they are still putting in food outlets, but most of T5 has retained the ridiculously tight ticketing and baggage arrival areas. Most gate seating areas are miniscule and corridors leading past the gates are narrow, grubby, and NOTHING like what is planned for the new Global Terminal. Not to mention how difficult it is to get to T5 from the blue line (have to walk to T2 take an elevator up two floors to walk over to an escalator that crosses over the road to another escalator down to the train that takes you to T5--who came up with this? Added bonus, you have to do all this in reverse from T5 to get over to T2 to catch an Uber. Note that all of this means dragging baggage for several hundred yards). The Delta set-up at T5 is giving my wife and I serious thoughts of just changing over to UA after 20 years of platinum/diamond status at DL.

A question is whether most the work at T5 is really finished (which would be comical) or are there continued major renovations to come apart from the new parking structure?

All this is to say that if AA's presence is getting shabbier and uncompetitive at ORD vis a vis UA, the same can be said about DL.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by Tombstoner

Quick comment and question: I would say that the Delta home in T5, apart from a nice lounge, is a dumpster-fire. The few new added gates are nice and they are still putting in food outlets, but most of T5 has retained the ridiculously tight ticketing and baggage arrival areas. Most gate seating areas are miniscule and corridors leading past the gates are narrow, grubby, and NOTHING like what is planned for the new Global Terminal. Not to mention how difficult it is to get to T5 from the blue line (have to walk to T2 take an elevator up two floors to walk over to an escalator that crosses over the road to another escalator down to the train that takes you to T5--who came up with this? Added bonus, you have to do all this in reverse from T5 to get over to T2 to catch an Uber. Note that all of this means dragging baggage for several hundred yards). The Delta set-up at T5 is giving my wife and I serious thoughts of just changing over to UA after 20 years of platinum/diamond status at DL.

A question is whether most the work at T5 is really finished (which would be comical) or are there continued major renovations to come apart from the new parking structure?

All this is to say that if AA's presence is getting shabbier and uncompetitive at ORD vis a vis UA, the same can be said about DL.

Those are good points too. I haven't had to go through T5 security since May and was assuming they were expanding the security checkpoints given the new additions and flights operating out of there now. I would hope that they are still working on that, or it's planned.

Also - I took a glance at the temporary gates at the end of C this past weekend. It looks like they are probably getting closer to getting those up and running as the concrete work at the bottom is mostly done.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by Tombstoner

Quick comment and question: I would say that the Delta home in T5, apart from a nice lounge, is a dumpster-fire. The few new added gates are nice and they are still putting in food outlets, but most of T5 has retained the ridiculously tight ticketing and baggage arrival areas. Most gate seating areas are miniscule and corridors leading past the gates are narrow, grubby, and NOTHING like what is planned for the new Global Terminal. Not to mention how difficult it is to get to T5 from the blue line (have to walk to T2 take an elevator up two floors to walk over to an escalator that crosses over the road to another escalator down to the train that takes you to T5--who came up with this? Added bonus, you have to do all this in reverse from T5 to get over to T2 to catch an Uber. Note that all of this means dragging baggage for several hundred yards). The Delta set-up at T5 is giving my wife and I serious thoughts of just changing over to UA after 20 years of platinum/diamond status at DL.

A question is whether most the work at T5 is really finished (which would be comical) or are there continued major renovations to come apart from the new parking structure?

All this is to say that if AA's presence is getting shabbier and uncompetitive at ORD vis a vis UA, the same can be said about DL.

This a temporary situation. For the next several years, Terminal 5 is going to be used more until the new Satellite Concourses are built off of Terminal 1. Terminal 5 is destined to become ORD's "low cost" concourse--which it is well suited for--but for the time being it's where extra gates exist for airlines that aren't UA or AA. No point in trying to get an airline to invest in or accept a medium term spot in Terminal 2 when it's going to be town down in a few years. Once the new Global Terminal is open it's going to be badass, but for most (or all) of this decade O'Hare is going to be limping toward the future.

[kbud]

Originally Posted by Tombstoner

Quick comment and question: I would say that the Delta home in T5, apart from a nice lounge, is a dumpster-fire. The few new added gates are nice and they are still putting in food outlets, but most of T5 has retained the ridiculously tight ticketing and baggage arrival areas. Most gate seating areas are miniscule and corridors leading past the gates are narrow, grubby, and NOTHING like what is planned for the new Global Terminal. Not to mention how difficult it is to get to T5 from the blue line (have to walk to T2 take an elevator up two floors to walk over to an escalator that crosses over the road to another escalator down to the train that takes you to T5--who came up with this? Added bonus, you have to do all this in reverse from T5 to get over to T2 to catch an Uber. Note that all of this means dragging baggage for several hundred yards). The Delta set-up at T5 is giving my wife and I serious thoughts of just changing over to UA after 20 years of platinum/diamond status at DL.

A question is whether most the work at T5 is really finished (which would be comical) or are there continued major renovations to come apart from the new parking structure?

All this is to say that if AA's presence is getting shabbier and uncompetitive at ORD vis a vis UA, the same can be said about DL.

I’ve been through T5 twice in the last month and I’ve had the opportunity to walk it thoroughly. My biggest takeaways were: 1) The Delta gate hold areas are tiny. 2) The walk from the Southwest gates to the terminal is like the, ‘running of the bulls.’ There are so many people walking from the new concourse extension into the original part of T5 that it creates a bottle neck. That section was not designed for people to walk back to the terminal as that was only departures, while arrivals went through the ground floor towards customs.

Why can’t ORD get it right? It seems like ORD development always
lacks looking to the future, is late at creating plans, and is slow at implementation. T2 sounds great, but it has slowed, won’t have a people mover to help move people, doesn’t address T3 (American operations will be at a huge disadvantage compared to United), and it is shoe horned around concourse G. The designs of aircraft parking by G looks goofy.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by kbud

Why can’t ORD get it right? It seems like ORD development always
lacks looking to the future, is late at creating plans, and is slow at implementation. T2 sounds great, but it has slowed, won’t have a people mover to help move people, doesn’t address T3 (American operations will be at a huge disadvantage compared to United), and it is shoe horned around concourse G. The designs of aircraft parking by G looks goofy.

Well..... This is what you get with a airport that has been around for decades. It would be great if we could just bulldoze everything and build a shiny new airport like Istanbul or Abu Dhabi..... But we don't have the money, top-down government, or ability to do that.

I agree, there are aspects of this expansion that could have been done better. My biggest complaint (as of right now) continues to be the apparent security checkpoint bottleneck. To fix all of other logistics issues with T5, again, you would have to do a complete rebuild.

For AA..... If they really wanted to get in on major expansions, they could push for a Western Terminal that connects to a new set of an additional two larger satellites, then once those are up, totally rebuild T3 to be a shiny OneWorld terminal.

Again though... These things take time, money..... sign off from both the airlines and the city. It's going to be years before we even have the OGT up and running.

[twister244]

Welp.... My last post didn't age well........

https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-ha...lights-chicago

O’Shea said it is particularly “concerning” that United has revived a 2018 threat to move its corporate headquarters at Willis Tower out of Chicago.

One option could be to economize on the Gang design that some in the industry have derided as an expensive “Taj Mahal.”

“There are certain things they wanted. Those have already been delivered. … We modernized the runways. And we’re now going to modernize the terminals so it stays the premier, No. 1 airport and aviation hub not only in the United States, but in the globe.”

I read this in one of two ways:
1 - The airlines are bitching because they suddenly have to shell out more of their profit to upgrade their share of the airport. Or.......
2 - It's odd that suddenly AA and UA are on the same page after all of the drama from the Emmanuel days.

Is it possible this is UA secretly trying to extract more out of the modernization because AA is secretly trying to dehub?......

Either way, I'm not happy with this news. I was looking forward to the OGT, but this puts the entire design in jeopardy.

[Kngkyle]

Probably shouldn't have picked an architect that had zero experience with airports... I can't wait to see what the airport equivalent of a blow-through floor and obnoxious ventilation panels is.

[k1052]

Cost is up and biz travel at ORD hasn't, and likely won't, fully recover.
I'm not particularly surprised they're balking now.

The city indisputably needs new facilities though so not sure how successfully the airlines are going to be able to pare things back.

[ChiMIchael]

I don't really follow the airport industry, but I have I feeling that it's trying to divest in Chicago. UA seems to have one foot out of the door.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by ChiMIchael

I don't really follow the airport industry, but I have I feeling that it's trying to divest in Chicago. UA seems to have one foot out of the door.

Not sure about that - Right now it may appear they are all in on DIA, but that's because DIA is in the middle/finishing stages of building out a significant amount of terminal space, so there's space/gates up for grabs. My guess is UA is all on-board with the new satellites, but doesn't want to shell out all of this money for a huge OGT that is just moving existing flights into place - UNLESS there's some sort of concessions.

[F1 Tommy]

United just wants the public to pay for more of the terminal. AA is much smaller now at ORD so who knows what they will do. I don't think they even know.

I said a long time ago in this thread, Chicago O'hare charges to much for everything, and most of the airport is not that great. Some of these magazines that give high scores to ORD in their rankings are not being honest.

On the bright side, places like Dallas are not as cheap to live and move a company to anymore. They have caught up and sometimes past Chicagoland in costs. The airports need to also become closer in costs.

[ChiMIchael]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

United just wants the public to pay for more of the terminal. AA is much smaller now at ORD so who knows what they will do. I don't think they even know.

I said a long time ago in this thread, Chicago O'hare charges to much for everything, and most of the airport is not that great. Some of these magazines that give high scores to ORD in their rankings are not being honest.

On the bright side, places like Dallas are not as cheap to live and move a company to anymore. They have caught up and sometimes past Chicagoland in costs. The airports need to also become closer in costs.

I'm not as big of a traveler as other members of the forum (my career and income doesn't warrant it), but I never had a big issue with ORD. I've never taken more than 45 minutes to get from check-in to the gate. My major issues are the it needs to modernize and the retail and restaurant options are lacking. MDW has better restaurants imo.

[SIGSEGV]

ORD has Frontera, everything else is a moot point.

[Roy_Batty]

I’ve recently used T5, particularly low cost carriers, and it’s awful the amount of time and effort you need to waste to walk from the new extension (Southwest), to the baggage claim, then take the people mover to get to Terminal 2 to grab an Uber. I had to take 4 elevators since I travel with kids and a stroller.

Why they don’t just allow ride sharing apps to arrive directly to Terminal 5? Why they don’t add a more direct access out of the security zone from the eastern concourse without having to walk all the way to the western concourse? What about upgrading the elevators?

Those things seem like an easy fix to make the experience less horrible.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Roy_Batty

I’ve recently used T5, particularly low cost carriers, and it’s awful the amount of time and effort you need to waste to walk from the new extension (Southwest), to the baggage claim, then take the people mover to get to Terminal 2 to grab an Uber. I had to take 4 elevators since I travel with kids and a stroller.

Why they don’t just allow ride sharing apps to arrive directly to Terminal 5? Why they don’t add a more direct access out of the security zone from the eastern concourse without having to walk all the way to the western concourse? What about upgrading the elevators?

Those things seem like an easy fix to make the experience less horrible.

I imagine there's not enough curb space with the construction?

[Roy_Batty]

I think they could easily fit something. I’m not sure if ride sharing apps were allowed previous to the construction anyway, but if this is actually the case and there is indeed no space available in the current curbside (I do not believe this is correct though), they could easily plan a temporary area somewhere around the parking as part of construction mitigation actions.

[jonesrmj]

A followup article from Chicago Sun-Times on the situation with United and American wanting the ORD Global Terminal to be scaled back.

United and American Airlines want to scale back or slow down the massive project to replace Terminal 2. Both Illinois senators and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who forged the plan with the airlines, say a deal’s a deal.

Read more - https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/12...orth-editorial

To me this all sounds like a pathetic attempt from United and American to get out of contributing as much money to the Global Terminal project. Hopefully it still happens as planned!

[twister244]

Originally Posted by jonesrmj

A followup article from Chicago Sun-Times on the situation with United and American wanting the ORD Global Terminal to be scaled back.



Read more - https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/12...orth-editorial

To me this all sounds like a pathetic attempt from United and American to get out of contributing as much money to the Global Terminal project. Hopefully it still happens as planned!

Agreed - The airlines could come to the table with a constructive attitude saying - "Hey - We are struggling with the escalating costs - What can we do?". Instead of - "Hey, we think this thing should just be canned"

[nomarandlee]

Originally Posted by jonesrmj

A followup article from Chicago Sun-Times on the situation with United and American wanting the ORD Global Terminal to be scaled back.


Read more - https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/12...orth-editorial

To me this all sounds like a pathetic attempt from United and American to get out of contributing as much money to the Global Terminal project. Hopefully it still happens as planned!

The problem is the incentive structure is just not there for us to have nice things in air travel in this country. Much like train and bus travel, this country's air travel is about maximizing volume and margins.

The airlines are strictly utilitarian. They want expenses only as far as operations go so they do not suffer compared to competitors in baggage loss and flight delays. With common-use gates that are theoretically open to all airlines, they feel even less compelled to take ownership of their terminals, which may provide a unique advantage to draw customers.

The airlines know they have a captive market. It is more of a matter of them worrying about pricing out leisure travelers with higher ticket fares and cutting into thin profit margins.

That said, the cost overruns are likely on par with the other massive rebuilds going in LAX, NYC, Atlanta, DFW, Denver, and others. Maybe Gang's gigantic skylight could be done with; that seems like it could involve a rather large and needless upkeep expense.

I wonder if instead of all the expensive staging and expense of tearing down and rebuilding Terminal 2 as well as the mid-field terminals if it would be less expensive to just build a new Far West Terminal complex and an underground train link to join the east and west sides of the airport. Scrap the mid-field terminals and the wholesale T2 rebuild, and build a modest renovation to T2 with a nice train link station.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by nomarandlee

I wonder if instead of all the expensive staging and expense of tearing down and rebuilding Terminal 2 as well as the mid-field terminals if it would be less expensive to just build a new Far West Terminal complex and an underground train link to join the east and west sides of the airport. Scrap the mid-field terminals and the wholesale T2 rebuild, and build a modest renovation to T2 with a nice train link station.

I mean, it's possible, but again, would that cost less than the original OGT plan? I guess since there's already a plan to build out a tunnel, then in theory, tacking on more satellites plus a Western Terminal works since the room is there. For reference, here's the original long-term plan for ORD.