Severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings swept through Chicago and northern Illinois on Monday, July 27, forcing repeated ground stops at O’Hare International Airport throughout the day. By evening, O’Hare had canceled 977 of its nearly 3,000 scheduled arrivals and departures, according to FAA data, with the airport recording more canceled flights than any other in the world that day. Ground delay programs pushed average wait times for arriving aircraft to roughly 438 minutes, among the longest of any major U.S. hub this year.
The disruption rippled well beyond Chicago. With O’Hare effectively closed to inbound traffic for stretches of the afternoon, roughly 4,000 passengers bound for the airport were diverted to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, turning MSP into an impromptu overflow hub. Midway Airport also issued its own ground stop as the same storm cells moved through the region, compounding delays for travelers connecting through either Chicago airport.
United Airlines, which operates one of its largest hubs at O’Hare, bore much of the impact, extending a run of weather-related cancellations that had already stretched across the prior 48 hours. The carrier waived change and cancellation fees for affected passengers and encouraged travelers to rebook through its app rather than wait in terminal lines that stretched for hours at customer service counters.
Forecasters warned that additional rounds of severe weather could move through the Midwest later in the week, meaning more delays are possible before the system clears. Travelers flying through Chicago in the coming days should check flight status directly with their airline before heading to the airport and build in extra connection time if routing through O’Hare or Midway.
Sources: NBC Chicago, The Travel
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