[kbud]

I just saw the list of the busiest airport in the world by passengers from 2023. O'hare was 9th with 73M people. Up until the latter part of the 90s, ORD was the busiest airport in the world. This is important as this is one of the major drivers of the local economy. I know someone will point out that ORD is at the top or near the top for total airport movements. This only means that ORD has more regional jet flights than other hubs around the world. In fact American's hub at ORD has well over 1/2 of their flights on regional planes. ORD for American by far has the highest % of regional jets for any US hub. Passengers help drive the economy, not the total # of flights.

The City and the State most come together with the airlines to figure this out, not only how to fund this but to plan for the future beyond this vision that is taking forever to materialize. If they don't figure this out, ORD will continue to slide.

2023 = 9th at 73M
2018 = 6th at 83M
2015 = 4th at 77M
2010 = 3rd at 66M
2000 = 2nd at 72M
1994 = 1st at 66M