O’Hare Hasn’t Built Big in 25 Years, and It Shows

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport handles more takeoffs and landings than almost anywhere on earth, yet it stands alone among the world’s 25 largest airports in one respect: it has not built or redesigned a terminal or concourse of at least 500,000 square feet in 25 years. That finding comes from a new study by DePaul University, reported by TravelPulse. The last time O’Hare opened a significant new terminal was 1993, when Terminal 5 debuted. Since then traffic has grown, and the airport’s taxi times now rank among the longest of any U.S. airport.

O’Hare is in the middle of a major overhaul that is meant to add two new concourses and a new Global Terminal by 2033. The study’s warning is that the journey there will be rough. It describes the next seven years as highly challenging, with rising traveler expectations colliding with construction work, concourse congestion and long taxi times. The Global Terminal will almost certainly be built in phases, the authors say, which means passengers will be walking through an airport under heavy construction for years.

United Airlines is expected to feel it most, because it relies heavily on Terminal 2, which will be demolished to make room for the new building. Federal regulators have already stepped in on capacity: the FAA cut about 12 percent of flights at the hub in spring 2026 to manage congestion. Axios has separately reported that O’Hare’s record summer left many travelers sitting on taxiways, underlining the same pressure the study describes.

The DePaul team’s main recommendation is to build as much of the new space as possible off site, using modular construction, and move the prefabricated sections into place later. That approach, the study argues, would shorten the period in which construction disrupts passengers and airline operations. For travelers connecting through Chicago in the next few years, the practical advice is simple: allow longer connection times than the minimum the booking engine offers, and expect the walk between gates to change as construction phases shift.

Sources: TravelPulse, Axios Chicago