O'Hare International Airport Still One of the Busiest Airports

For a long time in its nearly 70-year history, the O'Hare International Airport (ORD) in Chicago, Illinois was the world's busiest in terms of passenger travel (i.e. takeoffs and landings per day). As the world's busiest international aviation center, with a very high standard place on it by the world's scrutiny, there were several complaints about the level of flight delays taking place there (one study puts the number of delays at ORD alone to account for over a sixth of the total delays in the U.S.). Thus, after a 2005 government-imposed limit on ORD flights per day (to reduce delays) the claim of 'worlds busiest' has since been taken by the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Still, O'Hare commands quite an international presence, with over 60 destinations to foreign lands, and is the fourth busiest international center in the U.S.

Continually voted 'Best Airport in North America' by several different source for years (before the 2005 changes), ORD was originally expanded upon from the humble beginnings during World War II as a mere manufacturing plant for fighter jets. When the 1950's came and passenger jets were being used increasingly in worldwide aviation centers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) realized that Chicago's largest airport at the time (Chicago Midway International - MDW) would be too small and cluttered to support the first jet plane generation, thus the FAA called for ORD to become the future of Chicago's commercial aviation. Building an international terminal in 1958 and expanding upon ORD in 1962, all of MDW's traffic was shifted to O'Hare and almost immediately saw annual passenger travel in the 10 millions of passengers. Today, ORD caters to an annual 70 million passengers, both international and domestic, and maintains its status as the most important aviation center in the Midwestern U.S. region.