O’Hare among nation’s worst airports during holidays

SHARE O’Hare among nation’s worst airports during holidays
oharetravel122216.jpg

Chicago’s O’Hare Airport ranks near the top — or is that the bottom? — of several lists of America’s “worst” airports for holiday travel. | Getty

The holiday travel season is also the time of year when lists of America’s “worst” airports are published, and Chicago’s O’Hare Airport ranks near the top — or is that the bottom? — of several.

Nearly half of all flights at O’Hare are delayed during the month of December, according to a study of three years of travel data by personal finance website SmartAsset.com.

That dismal statistic ranked fourth among major U.S. airports, according to the website, behind Newark Airport in New Jersey, San Francisco International Airport and Clinton National Airport in Arkansas.

Market research company J.D. Power & Associates also ranked O’Hare fourth-worst for passenger satisfaction among U.S. airports, though consumers rated O’Hare 9 points higher in 2016 than last year — on a 1,000-point scale.

O’Hare also had the nation’s fourth-highest rate of flight cancellations, behind the New York-area triangle of LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark airports, according to a study by Milecards.com, a website that tracks travel and mileage-point accruing credit cards.

2016_holidays_2_map.png

December travelers at O’Hare can expect to tack an extra 35 minutes onto their trip, and nearly 3 percent will see their flight canceled entirely, according to SmartAsset. About 6 million passengers passed through O’Hare, the nation’s second-busiest airport, last December.

“There are a number of factors that impact travel times such as weather, both locally and in other parts of the country – especially during winter,” Chicago Department of Aviation spokesman Owen Kilmer said in an email, and noting billions invested in projects that will add gates to the nation’s second-busiest airport.

O’Hare’s busiest days are projected to be Dec. 23, when 210,485 passengers are expected, and Dec. 30, when 206,202 will flow through.

Once you’re on the way to the gate, O’Hare touts an average TSA wait time of less than 5 minutes — though that average includes times for people using the express Pre-Check lines. At peak times, passengers can expect to spend an average of 7 minutes, and the longest wait in November was 28 minutes.

2016_holidays_1_table_2.png

The Latest
The man was shot in the left eye area in the 5700 block of South Christiana Avenue on the city’s Southwest Side.
Most women who seek abortions are women of color, especially Black women. Restricting access to mifepristone, as a case now before the Supreme Court seeks to do, would worsen racial health disparities.
The Bears have spent months studying the draft. They’ll spend the next one plotting what could happen.
Woman is getting anxious about how often she has to host her husband’s hunting buddy and his wife, who don’t contribute at all to mealtimes.
He launched a campaign against a proposed neo-Nazis march at a time the suburb was home to many Holocaust survivors. His rabbi at Skokie Central Congregation urged Jews to ignore the Nazis. “I jumped up and said, ‘No, Rabbi. We will not stay home and close the windows.’ ”