Chicago's Two Airports Are At The Breaking Point

Chicago built two airports to handle the busiest aviation market in the Midwest, and right now both of them are falling apart at the same time. O'Hare just set an all-time passenger record while the FAA was forced to cap summer flights at 2,708 a day because the system literally cannot handle what United and American are scheduling. The $8.5 billion expansion ballooned to $12.1 billion. The Global Terminal slipped from 2028 to 2033. United paid $30 million for Spirit's gates just to deny them to American. Midway is geographically locked on a single square mile and lost an entire runway in 2023. On-time performance at both airports ranks among the worst in America. This is the story of how the busiest US airport became its most dysfunctional, and why Chicago's two-airport system is collapsing in slow motion.