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2d ago

Chicago Braces for Record 1.86 Million Fourth of July Travelers

Massive flight expansions collide with limited roadway capacity from ongoing Kennedy Expressway reconstruction

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Overview

  • Chicago Department of Aviation projects 1.86 million travelers through O’Hare and Midway over the July 4 weekend, with O’Hare hosting about 1.54 million passengers.
  • Sunday is forecast as the busiest travel day at O’Hare, when more than 300,000 passengers are expected to pass through security.
  • American Airlines is operating over 4,800 flights at O’Hare during the holiday period, a 20 percent increase from last year, and has deployed new connection-management technology to reduce missed transfers.
  • Final-phase Kennedy Expressway reconstruction is lengthening car travel times to O’Hare, prompting officials to recommend CTA Blue Line or Metra as alternatives.
  • Passengers are urged to arrive two hours before domestic flights and three hours before international departures, and O’Hare has added a rideshare pickup location at Terminal 3 to improve flow.