Blog

How many love stories are written in airports and around them? How many broken hearts has an airport terminal seen in just one day? Hundreds, thousands of departures, each carrying several hundred passengers across the world. Millions of unique destinies spreading towards the globe in the hope of a better future. The O’Hare International Airport knows it all by heart. Step into a page of the history of one of the largest airports in the world and a gateway to millions of dreams for America.
With a passenger volume of over 76 million per year and as much as 900,000 airplanes landing and departing each year, the O’Hare airport competes with the Atlanta International Airport for being the busiest airport in the world.

Early stages of construction

Back in the 1930s, Chicago was the second largest city in America, and when the United States joined the Second World War in 1939, the American aviation required a primary set off place to conduct its flights. The airport’s construction was finished by 1943, and it was mainly designed as a manufacturing plant for the airplane Douglas C-53 Skymaster. The Douglas Company’s contract ended in 1945 and the manufacturing company decided to move its business to the West. The airport then took the name of the small farming community nearby, Orchard Place.

Further development and the naming

Negotiations between Orchard Place and the city of Chicago soon began, with the latter wanting to transform the old airport into a more competitive one. Few years after the end of World War II, in 1948, Mayor Kennelly decided to name the airport after the naval aviator Edward “Butch” O’Hare, and the name stuck until today. One fact that strikes as a curiosity for this important international plane is that its former IATA code, “ORD” remained, even after the name of the airport was changed into O’Hare. Thus, today, the international airport of Chicago is one of the few instances in which the three-letter IATA code bears no connection with the metropolitan area surrounding the airport or with the airport’s name itself.

Commercial boost

Back in the 1950s, Chicago had a different main airport, in the form of Midway Airport, but it soon became too crowded for the flux of people starting to travel, despite its numerous expansions. With more than 7,000 acres of display, the O’Hare airport soon became Chicago’s first and most important civil airport. Commercial flights were first introduced in 1955, but the growth was slow in past few years. After investing more than 25 million USD in several terminals and runway enlargements, O’Hare still could not compete with the busiest airport in the world, Chicago’s primary Midway. Also, between 1955 and 1959 the airport only featured internal flights and as of 1959, one single company, TWA introduced regular European flights.

Current days

Currently, the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago is the fourth busiest in the entire world, generating annual revenues of 14 billion USD. It operates no less than 585 flights daily to worldwide destinations of the most complex. Also, it serves more than 200 worldwide destinations, becoming one of the biggest in the world, alongside London’s Heathrow and the airports from Amsterdam, Dubai, Istanbul or Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. If you are planning to travel, you can book limo service to O’Hare and we will gladly handle your traveling needs.