Two major US airport expansions move forward
Chicago O'Hare's terminal programme adds nearly three million square feet, while New Orleans unveils a master plan for a second terminal.
Two significant United States airport expansion programmes have advanced, addressing capacity constraints that have been limiting growth at both facilities for years.
Chicago O'Hare
The O'Hare 21 programme will add nearly three million square feet of terminal space and increase gate capacity by 25 percent.
Gate capacity is the binding constraint at O'Hare, and it has been for a long time. The airport has runway capacity that its terminals cannot match — aircraft can land, but there is nowhere efficient to park them. A quarter more gates is a large increase at a facility of this size, and it is the change that determines whether the airport's two hub carriers can grow their connecting banks.
Runways move aircraft. Gates move passengers. At O'Hare the gap between the two has been the operational problem for a decade.
New Orleans
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International has announced a master plan for a second terminal and a wider expansion programme.
The context is different. New Orleans opened a new terminal relatively recently, and it was sized for the traffic the airport had rather than the traffic it has since attracted. The city's tourism and convention business generates demand that is highly peaked — large numbers of visitors arriving and departing in concentrated windows around events — which is the hardest pattern for a constrained terminal to absorb.
Why terminal projects matter more than they appear to
Terminal capacity is the least glamorous part of aviation infrastructure and the most consequential for the passenger experience.
- Security throughput is a function of floor area and lane count.
- Gate availability determines whether an arriving aircraft waits on a taxiway.
- Connection reliability depends on the walking distance between gates and the ability to hold aircraft at contact stands.
An airport running above its terminal design capacity produces delays that look like airline problems and are not.
The timeline problem
Airport construction operates on a decade-scale horizon while demand forecasts operate on a five-year one. Projects are routinely designed against traffic assumptions that have already been overtaken by the time the concrete is poured.
For travellers in the meantime
Both facilities will be construction sites for years. Expect relocated gates, temporary security configurations and longer walking distances during the build. At O'Hare in particular, the advice to allow extra time for a connection is going to be sound for a while yet.