Chicago Aviation Thread - 2022

IrishAyes · Tue May 24, 2022 6:20 pm

United787 wrote:
ORDfan wrote:
https://www.scb.com/app/uploads/2019/01/Studio-ORD_Birds-Eye-1600x970.jpg

In any event, these renderings are 3+ years old. Last I heard, Jeanne Gang admitted some changes would be made to the final plans. Has has anyone seen or heard what some of these changes are? My biggest complaint was the 'elevated' arrivals hall, that required escalators/elevators to go up and back down to the concourse level.

It is crazy how little the CDA shares with the public. Based on how much they shared about AA's stinger gates in the L concourse and the expansion and renovation of Terminal 5, we won't know what the final plans are for the Global Terminal (2) and the two new concourses until construction is complete... I find it highly unusual for a public works projects, even for Chicago standards. I wish the Tribune or other media outlet would evoke the Freedom of Information Act and get some renderings for us

It's Chicago. Things move at a frustratingly slow pace here. Not to mention how much media attention is spent on attention-grabbing headlines these days that appeal to more than just us #AvGeeks. That said, I am grateful for this thread on ANET and the ORD Facebook page (URL below) that allows us to exchange info on a more regular basis.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/698296610181764

yeogeo · Tue May 24, 2022 6:32 pm

ORDfan wrote:
AAplat4life wrote:
I have not seen any drawings for the satellite concourses. They are supposed to harmonize its the Studio ORD design and be wider than the current concourses at ORD.

Here's an image that show's Studio ORD's satellite renderings.

se210 · Wed May 25, 2022 1:02 am

jcwr56 wrote:
No observation deck at T5. Rumblings are there will be an outdoor garden at the end of the OGT.

Ashame no observation deck at T5 is planned. Circa 1960, a swell view of the observation deck at ORD (showing AA DC-6, AA CV240, AA B707 and CHA S-58). Click on the postcard image for a larger view...

Source: My Private ORD Postcard Collection - Cameo Greeting Cards - P38540

gabik001 · Wed May 25, 2022 1:04 am

Dubai Airwing visited ORD again today. A6-COM as DUB3 arrived yesterday around 11pm and departed today at 5:45pm. Saw her on departure climbing north from ORD rwy 9C.

yeogeo · Wed May 25, 2022 1:46 am

gabik001 wrote:
Dubai Airwing visited ORD again today. A6-COM as DUB3 arrived yesterday around 11pm and departed today at 5:45pm. Saw her on departure climbing north from ORD rwy 9C.

No shot in the database of the aircraft at O'Hare yet. You get her on film, Gabriel?

gabik001 · Wed May 25, 2022 2:45 am

yeogeo wrote:
gabik001 wrote:
Dubai Airwing visited ORD again today. A6-COM as DUB3 arrived yesterday around 11pm and departed today at 5:45pm. Saw her on departure climbing north from ORD rwy 9C.

No shot in the database of the aircraft at O'Hare yet. You get her on film, Gabriel?

No, no pictures no footage. I was just talking outside with friend when saw her banking north. I was thinking at the beginning it is a Kalitta Pacific Air Cargo c/s (all white with something on the tail from the distance) but when was getting closer it was clear that it is a Dubai Air Wing. Then checked FR24 that showed only B744 without anything else but adsbexchange.com answered my questions.

Wneast · Wed May 25, 2022 2:49 am

I remember hearing WN might be getting more gates in the fall I’d that still the case at ORD ?

SRQLOT · Wed May 25, 2022 4:44 am

Im at M8 and although it looks nice and clean, it just looks too sterile, where are the bars? The passage way between tsa and the shops is still so tight!!

jcwr56 · Wed May 25, 2022 11:12 am

Wneast wrote:
I remember hearing WN might be getting more gates in the fall I’d that still the case at ORD ?

Still about the same. They have enough operations to run off 2-3 gates on a consistent basis, but still operate under common use rules.

jcwr56 · Wed May 25, 2022 11:25 am

SRQLOT wrote:
Im at M8 and although it looks nice and clean, it just looks too sterile, where are the bars? The passage way between tsa and the shops is still so tight!!

Dunkin donuts gets moved from their current location, so it frees up much needed passenger flowing space. Hudson moves out from the center location and moving to the right of M8/M9. There's 3 smaller stores retail stores going in that vacated space then. By M10/M11 there's a fogo de chao being built. Rumor on the west rotunda, towards the Delta gates, a well known fast food chicken chain that is usually closed on Sunday.

There was a recent tribune article that also listed some of the newer concession being built in the east extension. However, those won't be open when the first gates come online next Tuesday.

gabik001 · Wed May 25, 2022 12:44 pm

Breeze MXY6351 / N112BZ is scheduled to arrive from CHS around 11:40 this morning.

yeogeo · Wed May 25, 2022 1:07 pm

gabik001 wrote:
Breeze MXY6351 / N112BZ is scheduled to arrive from CHS around 11:40 this morning.

An Embraer 190. No photo in database. Here's N110BZ:

I remember a bit of a discussion up-thread of Breeze visiting ORD before, but apparently I wasn't paying attention.... What's up with these flights? Charters?

se210 · Wed May 25, 2022 1:48 pm

yeogeo wrote:
I remember a bit of a discussion up-thread of Breeze visiting ORD before, but apparently I wasn't paying attention.... What's up with these flights? Charters?

So 3 months ago, Breeze did a NCAA Basketball charter for the De Paul Blue Demons from ORD-PVD.

N112BZ is flying to Baltimore this afternoon as MXY6301 ORD-BAL and my hunch is this a charter for the Northwestern Women's Lacrosse Team. They are in the NCAA 2022 Division I Women's Lacrosse "Final 4" Championship being played in Baltimore (Homewood Field-John Hopkins University) on Friday, May 27th 2PM CDT (they play North Carolina). If they win, they will go onto the finals on Sunday, May 29th (also at Homewood Field-John Hopkins University) to play either Boston College or Maryland.

ORDfan · Wed May 25, 2022 2:42 pm

SRQLOT wrote:
Im at M8 and although it looks nice and clean, it just looks too sterile, where are the bars? The passage way between tsa and the shops is still so tight!!

That's exactly what I was afraid of. It looks terrible to me: too cold, and the seating rows look drab. It looks like a cheap bus terminal. And that dividing wall is driving me crazy .. why did they do that? Shouldn't the hall be open from one end to the other? I

Not to mention, I'm not 100% sure, but it seems that the exterior glass glazing doesn't match the color of the glass on the east extension. Perhaps it was due to a lack of sunlight, but I swear when I taxi'd past T5 last week (7am departure from T2), the M8-M11 extension glass looked almost black, while the east extension glass more closely matched the green hue of the departures atrium. Again, could be light - but can anyone confirm? It seems silly that they couldn't make the glass color more uniform across the entire terminal. WTH.

yeogeo · Wed May 25, 2022 4:45 pm

gabik001 wrote:
Breeze MXY6351 / N112BZ is scheduled to arrive from CHS around 11:40 this morning.

se210 wrote:
N112BZ is flying to Baltimore this afternoon as MXY6301 ORD-BAL and my hunch is this a charter for the Northwestern Women's Lacrosse Team. They are in the NCAA 2022 Division I Women's Lacrosse "Final 4" Championship being played in Baltimore (Homewood Field-John Hopkins University) on Friday, May 27th 2PM CDT (they play North Carolina)...

Saw the Breeze aircraft land on 9L and taxi into the NW corner of the field on YY. -unusual.

emcm541 · Wed May 25, 2022 8:51 pm

Weather delays at ORD due to severe weather/tornado warning; can't yet confirm if ground stop issued

AmricanShamrok · Wed May 25, 2022 8:53 pm

emcm541 wrote:
Weather delays at ORD due to severe weather/tornado warning; can't yet confirm if ground stop issued

FR24 looking like all arrivals/departures paused with long queues for departure runways.

gabik001 · Wed May 25, 2022 9:52 pm

ORD just restarted few minutes ago. No tornado observed so far.

se210 · Wed May 25, 2022 10:20 pm

yeogeo wrote:
gabik001 wrote:
Breeze MXY6351 / N112BZ is scheduled to arrive from CHS around 11:40 this morning.

se210 wrote:
N112BZ is flying to Baltimore this afternoon as MXY6301 ORD-BAL and my hunch is this a charter for the Northwestern Women's Lacrosse Team. They are in the NCAA 2022 Division I Women's Lacrosse "Final 4" Championship being played in Baltimore (Homewood Field-John Hopkins University) on Friday, May 27th 2PM CDT (they play North Carolina)...

Saw the Breeze aircraft land on 9L and taxi into the NW corner of the field on YY. -unusual.

Looks like my hunch was correct:

@JacobPavs on Twitter wrote:
https://twitter.com/JacobPavs/status/1529520215293415425
Charter tracking is back,
@BreezeAirways to Baltimore for @NULax in the NCAA Tournament.
✈️ ERJ-190, N112BZ
ORD-BWI

Go Wildcats!

yeogeo · Thu May 26, 2022 12:31 am

I've noticed that Air New Zealand has put up for sale their flights between ORD and AKL.
These start 30 October showing 789's operating Sun/Wed/Fri, arriving O'Hare at 16:05 hrs and departing at 19:00 hrs.
Can anyone tell me if this matches their frequency last time around, pre-covid?
It'll be great to see them back!

Chirahkord · Thu May 26, 2022 2:58 am

I found this rendering(go to the 6th picture) - looks like a mural wall by M11. Not sure if it’s a lounge on the other side? Would make sense sine the columns don’t match up with the exterior rendering.

https://www.hok.com/projects/view/chica ... expansion/

ZK-NBT · Thu May 26, 2022 3:25 am

yeogeo wrote:
I've noticed that Air New Zealand has put up for sale their flights between ORD and AKL.
These start 30 October showing 789's operating Sun/Wed/Fri, arriving O'Hare at 16:05 hrs and departing at 19:00 hrs.
Can anyone tell me if this matches their frequency last time around, pre-covid?
It'll be great to see them back!

NZ were 3 weekly in NW 2018/19 and NS19 while for the peak NW19/20 DEC-JAN they increased to 5 weekly, not sure yet if they will increase this NW, not to sure they will myself given they are launching JFK and a fleet shortage.

dctraynr · Thu May 26, 2022 3:46 am

emcm541 wrote:
Weather delays at ORD due to severe weather/tornado warning; can't yet confirm if ground stop issued

C90 TRACON and ORD ATCT were both evacuated and ATC-zero for a short period. A first tier ground stop was issued for both MDW and ORD for about 45 minutes.

se210 · Thu May 26, 2022 8:21 am

British Airways BA286/BAW6B SFO-LHR A380 diversion to ORD this morning (5/26/2022)...
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW6B/history/20220526/0235Z/KSFO/KORD
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ba286

G-XLEG Airbus A380-841 MSN#161.

se210 · Thu May 26, 2022 10:14 am

se210 wrote:
British Airways BA286/BAW6B SFO-LHR A380 diversion to ORD this morning (5/26/2022)...

Parked at the T5 "A380" gate: M11/M11A. Departed ORD Runway 28C at 04:48AM (09:48Z) for LHR.
Source: adsbexchange.com

Good practice for the BA A380 service starting on June 1st: BA295 LHR-ORD (Arr:13:10) / BA294 ORD-LHR (Dep:17:05)
Source: flightradar24.com

jcwr56 · Thu May 26, 2022 10:56 am

Chirahkord wrote:
I found this rendering(go to the 6th picture) - looks like a mural wall by M11. Not sure if it’s a lounge on the other side? Would make sense sine the columns don’t match up with the exterior rendering.

https://www.hok.com/projects/view/chica ... expansion/

It's the same area, the columns currently in the space will be replaced with the steel round ones as depicted.(Chain supply issues.) Same with each gate monitor. The shops shown are also starting to be built out.

Here's a link to the concessions agreement that was approved by the City of Chicago.

https://chicago.legistar.com/Legislatio ... 88AFC3A205

yeogeo · Thu May 26, 2022 11:36 am

se210 wrote:
British Airways BA286/BAW6B SFO-LHR A380 diversion to ORD this morning (5/26/2022)...

Nice catch, se! Good thing we have posters willing to stay up all night to check for irregularities on the field :shock:

A380 diverts present an interesting set of choices.

Here, YYZ or YUL might have been a bit closer, but O'Hare was chosen. A decision involving cross-border complications I wonder?

Mexicana757 · Thu May 26, 2022 3:36 pm

Avelo starts MDW-HVN operations later today. It looks like Avelo 421 will be arriving into MDW around 5:55pm and will depart 7:05pm. Avelo will be using the C concourse for their flights.

emcm541 · Thu May 26, 2022 5:49 pm

yesterday was 43 years since the AA 191 disaster. With all the unique weather, I had forgotten to bring it up.

se210 · Thu May 26, 2022 6:23 pm

Mexicana757 wrote:
Avelo starts MDW-HVN operations later today. It looks like Avelo 421 will be arriving into MDW around 5:55pm and will depart 7:05pm. Avelo will be using the C concourse for their flights.

It looks like the aircraft for today's inaugural Avelo Airlines HVN-MDW flight XP421 will be N707VL. No pictures on airliners.net yet, but appropriately, N707VL Boeing 737-7H4 MSN# 29843 is ex-Southwest Airlines N918WN "Illinois One" and no stranger to MDW. Welcome to Illinois Avelo Airlines!

se210 · Thu May 26, 2022 8:24 pm

se210 wrote:
It looks like the aircraft for today's inaugural Avelo Airlines HVN-MDW flight XP421 will be N707VL. No pictures on airliners.net yet, but appropriately, N707VL Boeing 737-7H4 MSN# 29843 is ex-Southwest Airlines N918WN "Illinois One" and no stranger to MDW.

It looks like today's inaugural Avelo Airlines HVN-MDW flight XP421 will now be N702VL instead of N707VL. It is also ex-WN (N916WN) so no stranger to MDW either...

yeogeo · Thu May 26, 2022 8:34 pm

Mexicana757 wrote:
Avelo starts MDW-HVN operations later today. It looks like Avelo 421 will be arriving into MDW around 5:55pm and will depart 7:05pm. Avelo will be using the C concourse for their flights.

Concourse C must be fairly lively these days with F9 and now XP ...and a couple more F9 Florida flights to come in October.
Anybody else operate scheduled service in C?

Mexicana757 · Thu May 26, 2022 10:18 pm

yeogeo wrote:
Mexicana757 wrote:
Avelo starts MDW-HVN operations later today. It looks like Avelo 421 will be arriving into MDW around 5:55pm and will depart 7:05pm. Avelo will be using the C concourse for their flights.

Concourse C must be fairly lively these days with F9 and now XP ...and a couple more F9 Florida flights to come in October.
Anybody else operate scheduled service in C?

F9 and XP are the only airlines operating out of Concourse C at the moment.

Mexicana757 · Thu May 26, 2022 11:18 pm

This airline is currently heading into MDW operating a charter flight from MIA on an A321-200. Does anyone know who they are operating the charter for?

jcwr56 · Fri May 27, 2022 11:28 am

Mexicana757 wrote:
This airline is currently heading into MDW operating a charter flight from MIA on an A321-200. Does anyone know who they are operating the charter for?

I believe they were headed to PUJ for a wedding. They'll be returning to ORD on the 30th and 31st.

yeogeo · Fri May 27, 2022 1:56 pm

If you thought there couldn't be more Canadian new entrants in the ORD-YYZ market, you'd be wrong.
Swoop, the ULCC subsidiary of WestJet, inaugurates flights on Monday, 30 May.

Schedules show a twice weekly service, Mon/Thurs, operating 737-800's.
Flights are scheduled to arrive O'Hare at 07:20hrs and depart at 08:10hrs.

Currently they're offering a o/w fare of US$65, which is 8 US dollars less than Flair's. Go figure.

Chisky16 · Fri May 27, 2022 5:48 pm

What is going on with processing of international arrivals at O'Hare? I flew in yesterday afternoon and waited in line for nearly TWO HOURS to get processed. Is this normal? This was my first international flight since the pandemic started, but even in 2019 at a time when there were more flights, the process was quicker and more organized. Yesterday the line wound around TWICE thorough the terminal before actually entering the main CBP area. There are missing ceiling tiles with exposed wires and pipes everywhere. It looks like a disaster! The irony was when we saw a poster advertising Chicago as a "world class experience" while being shoved around like cattle in a dilapidated terminal. There used to be self-service entry kiosks on the right area of CBP processing windows and those are now gone. Why is that? There were also separate lines for US citizens/residents and visitors. That was also done away with seems like. Yesterday's experience experience makes me want to think twice about avoiding ORD when flying internationally..

drdisque · Fri May 27, 2022 5:59 pm

Chisky16 wrote:
What is going on with processing of international arrivals at O'Hare? I flew in yesterday afternoon and waited in line for nearly TWO HOURS to get processed. Is this normal? This was my first international flight since the pandemic started, but even in 2019 at a time when there were more flights, the process was quicker and more organized. Yesterday the line wound around TWICE thorough the terminal before actually entering the main CBP area. There are missing ceiling tiles with exposed wires and pipes everywhere. It looks like a disaster! The irony was when we saw a poster advertising Chicago as a "world class experience" while being shoved around like cattle in a dilapidated terminal. There used to be self-service entry kiosks on the right area of CBP processing windows and those are now gone. Why is that? There were also separate lines for US citizens/residents and visitors. That was also done away with seems like. Yesterday's experience experience makes me want to think twice about avoiding ORD when flying internationally..

The International terminal is in the middle of a major expansion and refurbishment. That's why there was so much "exposed".

yeogeo · Fri May 27, 2022 6:01 pm

For some reason throwing shade left and right, The Economist reports that O'Hare is the largest port in the U.S right now in terms of the value of its imports.

"Chicago’s jumbo :yuck:

airport is now America’s leading port"
https://www.economist.com/united-states ... nto-planes
Behind a paywall, but I can summarize...

In 2021 "goods worth roughly $305bn passed through O’Hare, about 6.6% of American trade. It is far from being the port that receives most goods by volume (that is Los Angeles) or even the busiest airport (Anchorage’s moves more goods). But the 2.5m tonnes moved through Chicago is made up of far pricier stuff."

They report that it is at "OHareport" :yuck:

that almost all Apple products destined for the U.S market from China arrive, along with Rolls-Royce engines from Britain, Japanese car parts and medicines from India - all high-value products, to name a few.

They site a number of factors... Covid restricting belly freight on commercial airlines of course, especially from Asia, but also "Americans buying more physical stuff than ever, [and] congestion at American seaports means that items that would previously have been shipped by sea are being flown instead."

Not exactly news to us here, but O'Hare leading in value of imports was news to me. Something to be proud of, in spite of our "fading" :yuck:

terminals.

AmricanShamrok · Fri May 27, 2022 6:11 pm

Chisky16 wrote:
What is going on with processing of international arrivals at O'Hare? I flew in yesterday afternoon and waited in line for nearly TWO HOURS to get processed. Is this normal? This was my first international flight since the pandemic started, but even in 2019 at a time when there were more flights, the process was quicker and more organized. Yesterday the line wound around TWICE thorough the terminal before actually entering the main CBP area. There are missing ceiling tiles with exposed wires and pipes everywhere. It looks like a disaster! The irony was when we saw a poster advertising Chicago as a "world class experience" while being shoved around like cattle in a dilapidated terminal. There used to be self-service entry kiosks on the right area of CBP processing windows and those are now gone. Why is that? There were also separate lines for US citizens/residents and visitors. That was also done away with seems like. Yesterday's experience experience makes me want to think twice about avoiding ORD when flying internationally..

I had a similar experience when I flew in a couple of months back (about 17:00 on a Saturday). While a relatively frequent user of T5, I hadn't gone through Customs and Border Protection there since 2012 (one of the luxuries of having preclearance in your home country). I knew T5 was undergoing a major refurb so was expecting some delays but like you, I was in line for well over an hour being herded around the terminal before getting to the actual CBP hall. You're correct in saying there is no longer a separate line for US citizens (probably because they cannot accommodate the volume of passengers relative to space available currently). The flight attendants announced pre-arrival that Customs is now paperless so we would have to use kiosks to speed up the processing but this was not the case at all and we were handed the paper customs declaration to fill in while in line. It is a pretty miserable experience and not a great first impression of Chicago for any first-time visitors but hopefully it's a temporary thing.

United787 · Fri May 27, 2022 6:12 pm

Chisky16 wrote:
What is going on with processing of international arrivals at O'Hare? I flew in yesterday afternoon and waited in line for nearly TWO HOURS to get processed. Is this normal? This was my first international flight since the pandemic started, but even in 2019 at a time when there were more flights, the process was quicker and more organized. Yesterday the line wound around TWICE thorough the terminal before actually entering the main CBP area. There are missing ceiling tiles with exposed wires and pipes everywhere. It looks like a disaster! The irony was when we saw a poster advertising Chicago as a "world class experience" while being shoved around like cattle in a dilapidated terminal. There used to be self-service entry kiosks on the right area of CBP processing windows and those are now gone. Why is that? There were also separate lines for US citizens/residents and visitors. That was also done away with seems like. Yesterday's experience experience makes me want to think twice about avoiding ORD when flying internationally..

I arrived in T5, international arrival, in April of 2021 and 2022. Lines were not unusually long and remembered the lines moving relatively quickly.

But as mentioned T5 is currently a construction site so it is not pretty and not functionally perfectly either. That is the nature of keeping a facility open while under construction. To be expected, it will all get better than it ever was later this year.

That said, the self-service entry kiosks were gone for both arrivals. Anyone know why they are gone?

gabik001 · Sat May 28, 2022 2:46 am

I just run thru scheduled arrivals at ORD and can see two flights from VCV (UA B772 to be specific) around midnight. Are these flights some kind of ferry flights, service?
Also it is cancelled now, but MU7051 was scheduled to operate on A333 which seems to be something different as usually they operating on B77W...

airplanedaj · Sat May 28, 2022 3:47 am

gabik001 wrote:
I just run thru scheduled arrivals at ORD and can see two flights from VCV (UA B772 to be specific) around midnight. Are these flights some kind of ferry flights, service?
Also it is cancelled now, but MU7051 was scheduled to operate on A333 which seems to be something different as usually they operating on B77W...

I'd assume those are the UA PW non-ER 772's re-entering service after being out of commission since one blew an engine out of Denver.

piedmontf284000 · Sat May 28, 2022 3:51 am

United787 wrote:
Chisky16 wrote:
What is going on with processing of international arrivals at O'Hare? I flew in yesterday afternoon and waited in line for nearly TWO HOURS to get processed. Is this normal? This was my first international flight since the pandemic started, but even in 2019 at a time when there were more flights, the process was quicker and more organized. Yesterday the line wound around TWICE thorough the terminal before actually entering the main CBP area. There are missing ceiling tiles with exposed wires and pipes everywhere. It looks like a disaster! The irony was when we saw a poster advertising Chicago as a "world class experience" while being shoved around like cattle in a dilapidated terminal. There used to be self-service entry kiosks on the right area of CBP processing windows and those are now gone. Why is that? There were also separate lines for US citizens/residents and visitors. That was also done away with seems like. Yesterday's experience experience makes me want to think twice about avoiding ORD when flying internationally..

I arrived in T5, international arrival, in April of 2021 and 2022. Lines were not unusually long and remembered the lines moving relatively quickly.

But as mentioned T5 is currently a construction site so it is not pretty and not functionally perfectly either. That is the nature of keeping a facility open while under construction. To be expected, it will all get better than it ever was later this year.

That said, the self-service entry kiosks were gone for both arrivals. Anyone know why they are gone?

Kiosks are gone due to the limited space to reconfigure and improve the immigration and customs screening in the CBP area. There is just not enough ample space to have the kiosks with half the area under construction. They will return and they will have their own separate area when the renovations are complete. Unfortunately though, it is going to get worse before it gets better for T5 arrivals. CBP are short staffed, and the agents are already working tons of OT, but it is not enough to keep the wait lines moving for arriving passengers.

Sadly, we have not even hit the high water mark yet of international arrivals. June and July is going to be just awful for wait times and there is going to be a a lot of pent up anger among arriving passengers. I don't think the contractors/city ever foresaw the return of demand so soon to international travel otherwise they probably would have chosen to complete the reconfiguration much sooner but a now it's too late to change course so everyone will just have to grin and bear it. This quite possibly will be the worst summer ever for T5 international arrivals but by fall the overhaul should be complete. Fingers crossed.

se210 · Mon May 30, 2022 11:02 am

yeogeo wrote:
Swoop, the ULCC subsidiary of WestJet, inaugurates flights on Monday, 30 May.

Swoop inaugural flight WO746 departed YYZ (T3 Gate A19; Runway 24L 06:54) on its way to ORD (T5 Gate M4) this morning (5/30/2022).
C-GDMP B737-8CT MSN#60131 Fleet#838. Named #Hamilton. Here is a list of other Swoop aircraft names (Source:www.airfleets.com).

This picture of Swoop's inaugural service for YEG-YHM back in 2018 got me thinking if Swoop will get a water cannon salute greeting at ORD this morning?

Anybody know if our other recent new entrants: Flair (YYZ-ORD), WestJet Encore (YYZ-ORD) and Avelo (HVN-MDW) got a water cannon salute? Here are some previous water cannon salute pictures taken at ORD over the years (as recently as October 2021):

muralir · Mon May 30, 2022 8:38 pm

yeogeo wrote:
For some reason throwing shade left and right, The Economist reports that O'Hare is the largest port in the U.S right now in terms of the value of its imports.

"Chicago’s jumbo airport is now America’s leading port"
https://www.economist.com/united-states ... nto-planes
Behind a paywall, but I can summarize...

In 2021 "goods worth roughly $305bn passed through O’Hare, about 6.6% of American trade. It is far from being the port that receives most goods by volume (that is Los Angeles) or even the busiest airport (Anchorage’s moves more goods). But the 2.5m tonnes moved through Chicago is made up of far pricier stuff."

They report that it is at "OHareport" that almost all Apple products destined for the U.S market from China arrive, along with Rolls-Royce engines from Britain, Japanese car parts and medicines from India - all high-value products, to name a few.

They site a number of factors... Covid restricting belly freight on commercial airlines of course, especially from Asia, but also "Americans buying more physical stuff than ever, [and] congestion at American seaports means that items that would previously have been shipped by sea are being flown instead."

Not exactly news to us here, but O'Hare leading in value of imports was news to me. Something to be proud of, in spite of our "fading" terminals.

Talk about good timing, ORD finished its major cargo expansion just before the pandemic hit, so it actually had a good amount of airside space for the massive increase in cargo that the pandemic drove.

But it seems that the expansion is now completely filled, and shippers are moving traffic to RFD due to overcrowding. Which brings up the question: is there any further expansion in the works? Is there even more space to create new cargo ramps? And what exactly is the current bottleneck? Ramps to park cargo flights, or warehouse space to store everything before being shipped out off-site?

FWIW, I don't mind if some cargo gets offloaded to RFD. If it creates a northern air cargo corridor similar to the Joliet-centered southern rail and road cargo corridor, that's not bad for the state, which needs to spread some economic development outside of chicagoland. But there's no reason both RFD and ORD can't expand. Especially as belly traffic returns, those flights won't be landing at RFD, so we definitely need more capacity at ORD regardless of what happens at RFD.

yeogeo · Tue May 31, 2022 1:23 am

muralir wrote:
...Is there any further expansion in the works? Is there even more space to create new cargo ramps?

Actually there is: NE Cargo Phase III...
https://www.realterm.com/investment-str ... -phase-iii
... and it is underway. The accompanying taxiway work is also in the works. A small addition, admittedly, but a further expansion nonetheless.

ORDLHR787 · Tue May 31, 2022 2:45 am

1) Would it be possible someday to add cargo capacity by closing Patton Dr and building east?
2) Are shippers also looking at GYY? Seems loke its wide open to serve the south side of the city.

jcwr56 · Tue May 31, 2022 12:10 pm

yeogeo wrote:
muralir wrote:
...Is there any further expansion in the works? Is there even more space to create new cargo ramps?

Actually there is: NE Cargo Phase III...
https://www.realterm.com/investment-str ... -phase-iii
... and it is underway. The accompanying taxiway work is also in the works. A small addition, admittedly, but a further expansion nonetheless.

There's been concern about the lack of positive ramp control and the addition between the phase 3 and taxiway won't help.

yeogeo · Tue May 31, 2022 12:36 pm

Now it seems flights YYZ/ORD are ending after 6/18.
Checked Google flights after that date and they don't appear.
Not confirmed by F8 but perhaps news conference on 6/1 will shed some light.

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