Dealing with Ohare airport

[southwestW]

Originally Posted by mr JayG

Hi I will be visiting Chicago in late August and I will be flying into ohare airport. I've read a lot of information online that the airport is very busy and every flight going and coming to it gets delayed or cancelled. Is there any truth to this and if so what can a person do to deal with it?

Ridiculous. Not every flight is cancelled. Also I was there just last spring and on a Saturday night at around 10, airport was empty. I was shocked how few people were there, and this was just before spring break. I travel often to O'Hare or have layover and it not as crazy as you might read online. I assume it's busy Monday morning.

[ForYourLungsOnly]

Originally Posted by mr JayG

Ok thanks. I just heard so many horror stories about this airport.

lol. you will be fine. I've used O'Hare countless times and have only had 2 delays total.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by mr JayG

Hi I will be visiting Chicago in late August and I will be flying into ohare airport. I've read a lot of information online that the airport is very busy and every flight going and coming to it gets delayed or cancelled. Is there any truth to this and if so what can a person do to deal with it?

I've flown out of O'hare around 125 times. I would say maybe once every 10 times do I get a delay, normally not more than an hour. I've never had anything cancelled.

Where on earth would you hear every flight is delayed or cancelled??? That doesn't make rational sense. On average 27% of flights at O'hare are delayed 15 minutes or longer. Much of that average comes during crazy weather that can disrupt hundreds of flights all at once, and then the other 90% of the time there are very minimal delays. It averages to around 27%.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Saul Bunyan

O'Hare is the 2nd worst airport in the US for delays. The first is Midway. There is a 40% chance your flight will be delayed.

How to deal with it? Just sit around killing time, like a flight delay in any other airport. Bring a book or an iPad.

It really depends on the window of time considered. Newark and Boston-Logan have also been in the "number one worst delay" spot in recent years, and it moves around. I think O'Hare has been better since the new runways were added, but we've also had two of the worst winters on record over the past two years.

I've flown in and out of O'Hare dozens, possibly hundreds of times since the 1980's, and rarely have a problem--but I don't really do the Thanksgiving or Christmas flights and typically fly more in the warm weather months. I just flew in and out of O'Hare last week and had no problems whatsoever.

And O'Hare is GREAT for Chicagoans, since you can basically get a direct flight to just about anywhere. Connections are the worst.

[ForYourLungsOnly]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

And O'Hare is GREAT for Chicagoans, since you can basically get a direct flight to just about anywhere. Connections are the worst.

This.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by mr JayG

Hi I will be visiting Chicago in late August and I will be flying into ohare airport. I've read a lot of information online that the airport is very busy and every flight going and coming to it gets delayed or cancelled. Is there any truth to this and if so what can a person do to deal with it?

No - it depends on what's going on in tons of different places. i fly out of O'Hare almost every week and my flights are rarely delayed. Yes it happens, but for me at least they're on time usually but it could easily happen. Airport scheduling is very complex and a little thing could ripple out to unintended flights. I've only had one or two flights cancelled from there, but it was due to really bad weather at my destination and my destination airport putting a ban on incoming flights for hours. Out of probably around 50 flights I've taken out of O'Hare in the last almost year, I'd say around or possibly less than 5 were delayed pretty badly. Only two of them come to mind for anything that was bad. The others were like 15 minute delays.

[luv my dayton]

Originally Posted by mr JayG

Hi I will be visiting Chicago in late August and I will be flying into ohare airport. I've read a lot of information online that the airport is very busy and every flight going and coming to it gets delayed or cancelled. Is there any truth to this and if so what can a person do to deal with it?

Its one of the busiest in the country but can run into delays as any airport. Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth can both be a pain. They all proceed with caution to get passengers to their destinations safely.

[George Frankly]

On-time stats: RITA | BTS | Title from h2

Roughly 70% on-time for O'Hare in the last year.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by George Frankly

On-time stats: RITA | BTS | Title from h2

Roughly 70% on-time for O'Hare in the last year.

Stats are always helpful, thanks!