Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD)

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Location Information

Chicago, USA

Location Name

Chicago O'Hare International Airport

Airport codes

ORD

Time Zone

GMT -5

Location Address

PO Box 66142 Chicago, Illinois 60666, USA

Access

The airport is situated 29km (18 miles) northwest of Chicago.
The airport lies on I-190. To reach I-190 from central Chicago, take I-90; from the north and south suburbs, take I-294; from the west suburbs, take I-88, then I-294

Airport Overview

Contacts

Telephone

+1 773 6862200

Fax

+1 773 686 3573

Email contact through website

www.ohare.com

Airport Information

Chicago O'Hare International Airport is presently using four terminals (Terminals 1, 2, 3, and International Terminal 5). Each serves several airlines and a large number of destinations. Each terminal is well served by restaurants, bars, newsstands, and shops. Business services, banks, and ATMs are available and, in the appropriate terminal, airline club lounges cater to the needs of frequent flyers

Airlines

Aer Lingus, Air France, Air India, Air Jamaica, Alitalia, American Airlines (international arrivals only), AVIACSA, British Airways, BMI British Midland, Cayman Airways, El Al, Iberia (arrivals only), JAL Japan Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Korean Air, Kuwait Airways, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa (arrivals only), Mexicana, PIA Pakistan International Airlines, Royal Jordanian, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, TACA, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines (international arrivals only), and USA 3000 Airlines

Airline Lounges

Aer Lingus, Air France, Alitalia, All Nippon Airways, American Airlines, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Iberia, JAL Japan Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Korean Airlines, Kuwait Airways, Lufthansa, Northwest Airlines, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Worldwide VIP

Terminals

4

Facilities

Restrooms / Toilets

These are located in key locations throughout the Airport

Disabled facilities / Medical Facilities

Defibrillators have been strategically positioned throughout the airport terminals within one minute's walk from any given point in the airport. These units are in cabinets directly linked to the city of Chicago's emergency medical services

Information representatives provide assistance to hearing- and visually-impaired travellers. Disabled passengers are requested to confirm any special needs with their airline four days in advance. Facilities include ramps and lifts, escorted wheelchair services, TTY telephones, visual paging for hearing-impaired passengers and Braille buttons in lifts. The ATS system is fully accessible, with elevators provided at each of the five stops

Business facilities

Internet Access
Laptop Lane offers plug-ins for laptops and the use of personal computers, with the services of a T1 line for high-speed Internet access.
Fax and Photocopying
Both the Hilton Business Center and Laptop Lane offer facsimile and photocopy services. In addition to this, printing, long distance calls, packing, and shipping facilities are also available for business travelers at the airport

Baggage

Trolleys are available at all terminals. There are lost property desks staffed by the Chicago Police Department on the upper levels of all terminals.

Shops and restaurants

Chicago O'Hare International Airport offers a wide selection of restaurants and bars, such as Sky Bridge Restaurant, Starbucks Coffee, Prairie Tap, The Meridien Bar, and Wolfgang Puck

All terminals at the airport provide World Duty Free shops. Terminal 3 provides an extra shop.

Other services

The airport has its own automated 24-hour ATS train system connecting all four terminals, the Metra station, PACE stop and the long-term car park (Lot E). It is free of charge to use

O'Hare Airport Chapel
Located on the Mezzanine Level of Terminal 2 above the US Airways ticket counters (outside the security checkpoint)
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Country Information

Speed Limits

The speed limit in most states is now 65 miles per hour (about 110 km/hr) except where signs indicate slower speeds.

Side of the road

Right

In 2008, the airport had 881,566 aircraft operations, an average of 2,409 per day (64% scheduled commercial, 33% air taxi, 3% general aviation and <1% military). O'Hare International Airport is the second busiest airport in the world, behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with 69,353,654 passengers passing through the airport in 2008; a -8.96% change from 2007. O'Hare also has a strong international presence, with flights to more than 60 foreign destinations. O'Hare was ranked fourth in 2005 of the United States' international gateways, with only John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, Los Angeles International Airport and Miami International Airport, serving more foreign passengers.

O’Hare International Airport has been voted the "Best Airport in North America" for 10 years, by readers of the U.S. Edition of Business Traveler Magazine (1998 - 2003) and Global Traveler Magazine (2004 - 2007).

Most of O'Hare Airport is in Cook County, but a section in the southwest part of the airport is in DuPage County.

Although O'Hare is Chicago's primary airport, Chicago Midway International Airport, the city's second airport, is about 10 miles (16 km) closer to the Loop, the main business and financial district.

The airport was constructed between 1942 and 1943, as a manufacturing plant for Douglas C-54s during World War II. The site was chosen for its proximity to the city and transportation. The two million square-foot (180,000 m²) factory needed easy access to the workforce of the nation's then-second-largest city, as well as its extensive railroad infrastructure. Orchard Place was a small pre-existing community in the area and the airport was known during the war as Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field (hence the location identifier ORD). The facility was also the site of the Army Air Force's 803 Special Depot, which stored many rare or experimental planes, including captured enemy aircraft. These historic aircraft would later be transferred to the National Air Museum, going on to form the core of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's collection.

Douglas Aircraft Company's contract ended in 1945 and though plans were proposed to build commercial aircraft, the company ultimately chose to concentrate production on the west coast. With the departure of Douglas, the airport took the name Orchard Field Airport. In 1945, the facility was chosen by the City of Chicago, as the site for a facility to meet future aviation demands.

Matthew Laflin Rockwell, (1915–1988) was the director of planning for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and responsible for the site selection and design of O'Hare International Airport. He was the great grandson of Matthew Laflin, a founder and pioneer of Chicago, Illinois. Though its familiar three-letter IATA code ORD still reflects the early identity of the airport, it was renamed in 1949, after Lieutenant Commander Edward "Butch" O'Hare, USN, a World War II flying ace, who was awarded the Medal of Honor.
See also: Illinois World War II Army Airfields

By the early 1950s, Chicago Midway International Airport, which had been the primary Chicago airport since 1931, had become too small and crowded, despite multiple expansions and was unable to handle the planned first generation of jets. The City of Chicago and the FAA began to develop O'Hare as the main airport for Chicago's future. The first commercial passenger flights were started there in 1955 and an international terminal was built in 1958, but the majority of domestic traffic did not move from Midway until completion of a 1962 expansion at O'Hare. The arrival of Midway's former traffic instantly made O'Hare the new World's Busiest Airport, serving 10 million passengers annually. Within two years, that number would double, with more people passing through O'Hare in 12 months than Ellis Island had processed in its entire existence. In 1997, annual passenger volume reached 70 million; it is now approaching 80 million. At this time of writing,[when?] United serves its flagship hub with 650 daily departures, but the carrier's utilization of O'Hare peaked at over 1,000 daily flights in 1994.

O'Hare Airport is municipally connected to the city of Chicago via a narrow strip of land, approximately 200 feet (61 m) wide, running along Higgins Rd, from the Des Plaines river to the airport. This land was annexed into the city limits in the 1950s, to assure the airport was contiguous with the city to keep it under city control and for the massive tax revenue. The strip is bounded on the north by Rosemont and the south by Schiller Park. The CTA Blue Line was extended to the airport in 1984.