O’HARE ON TRACK TO REGAIN CROWN AS BUSIEST U.S. AIRPORT
New routes to exotic destinations are one reason O’Hare International Airport might vault into first place this year in the busiest U.S. airport sweepstakes.
Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31, O’Hare climbed over its archrival Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in terms of flight numbers, according to data from the Federal Aviation Administration as of Monday.
Total operations for the first 10 months of the year at O’Hare were 754,427, up 4 percent from 2017. That’s above Atlanta’s 750,813 flights, but it’s still close with two months remaining to be counted.
New international routes are one reason O’Hare’s numbers are surging, Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Lauren Huffman said.
“We have 17 new international routes, and that includes never-served before destinations,” Huffman said. New routes include Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Bogota, Colombia, and Air New Zealand on Friday began a nonstop route to Auckland from O’Hare.
Huffman also credited a commitment to growth from O’Hare’s airline partners, a trend aviation expert Joseph Schwieterman confirmed.
“After a difficult period, O’Hare is again on a major upswing, largely as a result of major expansions by American and United. These carriers took a great deal of risk by adding so many new flights but are now reaping the benefits due to very strong consumer demand,” said Schwieterman, a DePaul University professor.
O’Hare last held the title in 2014. Travel website TripAdvisor on Tuesday called the Portillo’s in Chicago’s River North neighborhood the best fast casual restaurant in the nation by awarding it its national Travelers’ Choice award. Award winners were determined using an algorithm that took into account the quantity and quality of reviews for restaurants around the world, gathered over a 12-month period, TripAdvisor said.
—Daily Herald report After four years, the Arlington Heights Ditka’s restaurant next to Arlington International Racecourse is set to shut its doors by the end of the month, village officials confirmed. The impending closure comes just months after the restaurant started to cut back its hours, which triggered liquor service to be cut off for weeks at the off-track betting parlor that shares the building with Ditka’s.
—Christopher Placek