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O'Hare International Airport

Chicago metropolitan area

  • IATAORD
  • ICAOKORD
  • FAAORD
84.9 million Passengers a year (2025)
Serves
Chicago metropolitan area
Operator
Chicago Department of Aviation
Owner
Not recorded
Opened
February 1944
Elevation
668 ft (204 m)
Runways
8 (longest 3,962 m)
Airlines based here
American Airlines, United Airlines, Atlas Air

About the airport

Chicago O'Hare International Airport (IATA: ORD, ICAO: KORD, FAA LID: ORD) is the primary international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, United States, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately 17 miles (27 km) northwest of downtown. The airport is operated by the Chicago Department of Aviation and covers 7,627 acres (11.92 sq mi; 30.87 km2). It is the airport with the most runways in the world, with eight. Designed to be the successor to Chicago's Midway International Airport, itself once nicknamed the "busiest square mile in the world", O'Hare began as an airfield serving a Douglas manufacturing plant for C-54 military transports during World War II. It was renamed Orchard Field Airport in the mid-1940s and assigned the IATA code ORD. In 1949, it was renamed after aviator Edward "Butch" O'Hare, the U.S. Navy's first Medal of Honor recipient during World War II. As the first major airport planned after World War II, O'Hare's innovative design pioneered concepts such as concourses, direct highway access to the terminal, jet bridges, and underground refueling systems. O'Hare became famous during the jet age, holding the distinction as the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic…

This summary is adapted from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence. Passenger and runway figures come from the same source and can lag the latest annual totals, so check the figures the operator publishes for the current total.

9 emergencies, incidents and accidents we have reported at or near this airport

Our coverage of O'Hare International Airport

9 articles