If you’ve wended your way through O’Hare International Airport lately, you probably have noticed longer lines at security checkpoints and the Gold Coast Dogs cashier, more and more people crowding into concourses and shuttle buses beginning to fill up. Hard numbers back up the perception. In July, nearly 6 million people flew through O’Hare. That’s a marked jump from the 2 million who did so in July 2020.
That’s good. It means one of the tell-tale signs of extraction from the pandemic — back-to-normal air travel — has been picking up pace.
Alas, we’ll have to temper that feel-good moment with a cold dose of bad news. J.D. Power, which annually ranks passenger satisfaction at North American airports, put O’Hare at the bottom of the list. Even Newark Liberty International Airport ranked higher. O’Hare’s dismal performance is linked mostly to passengers’ dissatisfaction with their experience at the airport’s terminals, J.D. Power officials said.
We’re not surprised. Seasoned travelers have been putting up with O’Hare’s cramped, inefficient terminals for years. Navigating the airport’s concourses has always been not unlike a roller derby. A few nudges here, some shoulder bumps there. Bathrooms? Claustrophobic and grungy — it’s a roll of the dice whether you get a stall door latch that works. Aesthetic? Sure, if you fancy stained carpets and drab decor. None of these problems have stopped parking rates from increasing again. It’s now a whopping $42 a day to park even in the cheaper sections of the main garage.
Then there’s the “People Mover” that hasn’t moved any people at all since January 2019, and hasn’t moved passengers on weekdays since the spring of 2018.
Officially known as the Airport Transit System, the train that connects economy parking lots to terminals was supposed to be all but done by a Dec. 6, 2018 deadline. Instead, travelers — families with children and suitcases in tow, businesspeople rushing to make flights — agonize in economy lot shelters while they watch a shuttle bus on the far side of the lot, creep along aisle by aisle. Add snowfall and rainstorms to the experience, and you get the very definition of misery.
Read more here.
This article captures the essence of O’Hara very well. Two additional crappy features: 1. The out of order escalators throughout and people movers between terminals B and C. 2. The awful smell in the corridor between terminals B and C.
The place is a dilapidated crap hole.