Not So Fast: Has Chicago Overtaken Atlanta As Country's Busiest Airport?

how much of a factor are the cargo flights for ORD? I definitely see a decent number of cargo 747s flying over in Chicago

I assume Chicago probably experiences more cargo traffic than Atlanta. Does anyone know if that's true?

For what it’s worth, ORD almost certainly overtook DFW and DEN in passenger count this year, moving up from the #4 to the #2 slot. And it should add another 5%+ to that figure next year!

It's irrelevant regarding passengers or enplanements. Chicago is by far the better city. Atlanta was burnt by General Sherman, we were burnt by a cow, which is far cooler. But it's mostly because United is headquartered here and Atlanta has the most evil airline on Earth, run by a man that mixes his analingus efforts on Satan and Guillaume Faury, and whose amateur spokestwit here is a verified retard (yes, you, Timbits).

Ben is correct.

The skies over Chicago will become even more crowded as AA and UA fight it out w/ RJs trying to win on flights while limiting the amount of capacity.

Meanwhile, DL's hub at ATL has one of the highest average aircraft sizes of large US hubs.

and DL offers more seats from ATL than any other hub in the world.

For the aircraft spotter, ORD is better than boring ATL, full of Delta planes. Of course, ORD cannot compare with LHR or JFK.

Lucky - Quick estimates I found online show that ORD does 10,000+ more cargo takeoff/landings than ATL. Might explain part of the discrepancy.

Atlanta is racist but Chicago is famous for governors being promoted to prison inmate afterwards, Kerner, Walker, Ryan, Blago. Pritzker is so fat he should be on a prison diet.

Chicago architecture easily beats Atlanta. But Atlanta never committed terrorism in the form of a mayor destroying an airport (Meigs Field) in the early morning hours.

As a passenger, I slightly prefer ORD.

All of that is countered by the 100 Nobels won by my alma mater and the fact that I was born in the city.

Ben's use of "the airport" in the first 4 bullets is really cool -- in the first two, it is ORD, in the next two, it is ATL. The reader can only infer the referent of the 3rd and 4th bullets' instances of "the airport" from the existence of the first two bullets. (I started reading from the 3rd bullet for some reason and had no idea which airport was being talked about.) Presumably this is because the same info is being repeated but with different numbers, so it must be the other airport. And the first airport is clearly ORD. And we figure all this out without conscious thinking (unless we start with the 3rd bullet).

(This message possibly of interest to the small population who are both LangGeeks and AvGeeks.)

We love our RJs, short bus rider. Go pleasure yourself with your A350-1000 sex toy and shut up.

least obvious ragebait

You’re absolutely correct, but let’s remember that it’s still the Midwest. Have some humility and remember that you share a country with the Northeast and California, even if you’re king of flyover land.

ORD did use to be the busiest airport in the world for quite some time

ORD for decades was the world’s busiest airport by pax. Lost it to ATL in the 90s? 00s?
ORD had led by plane movements for a decade or more (not sure during pandemic).
ORD is helped by having the most runways (8) in the world for a commercial airport.
Won’t be surprised to see ORD overtake ATL in pax once again once the satellites and Global Terminal are completed.
Also keep in mind, Chicago has a second airport at 20+ mil pax, so Chicago may have more pax than ATL.

It's only right. Let's go OHR! Realistically, Windy City can still easily be one of the world's top destinations if not for crime.

Asking for a friend but where does one obtain one of these silicone A350-1000s?

Again, not for me.

“… if not for crime.”

LOLOLOLOLOLOLLLOL!!!!!1!!!!

ORD, your typical negativity is sometimes outshined by days like today. Being razed to dirt by a mildly disgruntled cow is indeed far cooler than any other way a major fire has started before or since. It of course also allowed Chicago to grow into the sparkling marvel that it is today, much like Japan following WWII.

Forget crime, that Lake Effect weather keeps me away half the year. Brrrrr. If Chicago had SF’s weather it would be unstoppable.

I prefer the term lexiphile because the double-G in langgeek hurts my brain. Both hobbies pair well with my [severe] case of ferroequinologism and mild philatelic habits. My friends group chat isn’t called “nerd herd” for nothing. Plenty of grammar gurus in the comments on OMAAT, though!

It's CFRP

CFRP

Years ago, the headline was about salsa topping ketchup as top-selling/favorite condiment. Ketchup by far sold more volume/weight, so it was the favorite in that sense. Salsa costs a lot more. So, salsa has less total volume/weight, but the $ales were more. No difference, here, pick the stat that produces the ranking you want.

That sounds uncomfortable.

Which stat puts CMH on top?

I came here for ORD’s ‘hot take’ on this, and I was not disappointed.

you have so much to learn.

Thank you for "ferroequinologism", new word for me!

You know why? Because people like to say salsa.

Doesnt matter, mark my words, with DFW's new state of art additional terminal F, focused on AA and one world international and 30+ new gates, plus them finishing adding like 10-15 to existing terminals plus renovations...by 2030 or sooner DFW for the big win. hehehe. plus its just a better not crowded feeling, modern, way better airport.

Living in the ATL region nobody wants to fight the traffic trying to get to the airport. And with the Delta stranglehold on ATL nobody wants to pay their fares. So, they opt for smaller airports with feeders to elsewhere. Even if you connect via Delta through ATL their schedules are not great and layovers excessively long. They need to work on their feeder schedules. I opt to go through DFW or ORD or even the dreaded CLT from a smaller airport near me.

Crazy Brandon Jackson is a total dummy. This is complexity untrue and Chicago maintains it post as forth busiest airport in. The contiguous united states.

Yeah but ORD isn't sitting still. They just completed an expansion of T5, and now they're working on massive expansion of the main terminal complex, adding several concourses and redoing T2 as a global terminal for star alliance and one world airlines. Once they finish that, the reconfiguration actually nets them a bunch of new land on which they can build 2-3 more concourses in the future pretty easily if/when the traffic merits it.

As an ORD homer, I'm not too worried about DFW. It will always be big, of course, but their planned expansions aren't as much as ORD's. The big wildcard is Denver. They're in expansion mode as well, and have the space and layout to essentially build as much as they want. Their yearly growth has catapulted them in the rankings, and I imagine they'll continue to grow pretty aggressively.

By 2030, I think it will depend on which airports actually complete their construction projects on-time. On the downside, all of these big expansions (including plans at LAX, EWR, and JFK) mean that the per-passenger landing fees are set to explode at most of the biggest airports, meaning higher ticket prices most likely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cargo_airports_in_the_United_States

tl;dr Yes ORD has significantly more cargo traffic than ATL. A couple of years ago, ORD was deemed the busiest port in the country (beating out water ports like LA and Long Beach) by value, meaning the dollar value of the goods that were transported. Of course, that's because ORD has a lot of high-value low-weight air cargo, like electronics and pharmaceuticals. While ocean freight tends to be high weight and cheaper. But that gives you a sense of the scale of its cargo operations.

That said, a lot of that cargo is in the belly of passenger jets, but they do get a lot of dedicated cargo flights as well.

There are lots of ways that an airport can be deemed busiest. As far as statistics that are actually useful for a traveler, I think neither most passengers nor most flights is all that useful.

For me, the two biggest are most connected (i.e. how many unique non-stop destinations can I reach by at least daily frequency), and least average CASM. I don't know about the latter, but ORD typically ranks pretty high on connectivity.

That said, between most passengers and most flights, I actually think most flights is the better metric for passengers. Most people don't buy tickets based on aircraft type. They buy it based on price and schedule. All those regional jets do have a purpose besides hogging gates: there are a lot of small and even mid-sized towns for which it's far better to run 2-3 regional jets daily rather than a single 737.

Even for myself, I'd rather connect through an airport that has multiple flights to my final destination, even if they're RJs, than one single large aircraft. That way, I have more flexibility in choosing convenient timings, and if there are any delays on my first leg, I have a much better shot at still reaching my destination rather than spending the night at the layover airport.

The choice is usually not 5 daily RJs from ORD vs 5 737s from ATL. It's more like 5 RJs from ORD vs 3 737s from ATL. The former gives passengers (both O&D and connecting) much more advantage than the latter. Who cares how many pax you're sharing the flight with? It's not like domestic narrowbodies have lie flat seats and bars in the back. Heck, some of the regional jets are actually more comfortable than domestic 737s and A32x.

I think ORD should take the cake. Aircraft movements are a lot more difficult than passenger count IMO.

O’hate is literally one of the world’s worst airports in the world with two of the worst airlines in the world.. if you want to see a world class airport ran right, smoothly, plenty of restaurants, seating and so easy to navigate, you will find that at THE WORLD’S BUSIEST AIRPORT…. ATLANTA with the best, Delta airlines!