Results tagged “ohare”

As if we needed more reasons for delays out of our bustling airports ahead of the holidays. An FAA computer glitch cause nation-wide delays this morning, including at Midway and O'Hare. As of around 9 a.m. this morning, the Trib reported minimal delays at both Chicago airports (averaging 20 to 30 minutes) and the AP was reporting the glitch had been resolved. But AirTran has already been forced to cancel almost 40 flights due to the glitch and other residual delays can be expected. A quick scan of the FAA's flight delay site shows the worst of the delays confined to the East Coast but, as always, check with your specific airline before heading out the door.

Travel deal mega-site Orbitz has some news for you: O'Hare is going to be really, really busy at Thanksgiving and you should fly out of Midway instead. Of course, chances are you already knew that. And, given the way prices for Thanksgiving are almost twice as expensive as any other weekend of the year, chances are you booked well in advance and you're either stuck with O'Hare or Midway already. But in the event you've waited til the last minute (seriously, Thanksgiving is two weeks from today! Don't disappoint Mom!), Orbitz thinks Midway is the better option.

At least on one home in the north center of Chicago. Last night at about 7:52 p.m. a large of chunk of ice fell onto the roof of a house on the 4200 block of N. Wolcott Ave while the family was inside watching TV. They said they heard a loud thud that shook the house like an earthquake. The family collected the balls of ice into a plastic bag and believes a large chuck on ice fell from the sky, hitting the roof and exploded into smaller pieces.

Need a flu shot but find yourself too busy at this time of year to stop by a clinic? Well, now you could get one while you wait for your flight back home for Thanksgiving. The city will be offering kiosks at both Midway and O'Hare where flu shots will be available for $35 through the end of the year. [WBBM]

Ismail Alqawasmi, 36, was arrested at O'Hare last night in connection with terror threats made in Minnesota; there was a warrant for his arrest. According to the Sun-Times:

With Mayor Daley's budget on the table and things looking grim financially for the next several years, it's natural to wonder what other city assets Daley will sale as he dips into the parking meter lease cash to help cover the 2010 budget gap. The Sun-Times Fran Spielman runs down for us what could very well be up for sale next, including another run at privatizing Midway. Daley's tried to do it before. The 99-year, $2.5 billion deal was set up by the mayor and approved by the City Council, but the deal floundered as the economy did. Another run at this deal with any number of companies wouldn't be a surprise. Spielman suggests he could also try to do the same kind of deal with O'Hare, which would bring in even more money, but roadblocks could drag out such an attempt.

• A Decatur man has been arrested for plotting to blow up a federal courthouse in Springfield.
• Mayor Daley called the safety violations the FAA took O'Hare International Airport to task for "not very significant."
• This whole Cubs sale is one step closer to being done.

The Federal Aviation Administration discovered a litany of safety violations in a recent routine inspection of O'Hare International Airport, the Tribune reports today. The FAA sent a "letter of notice" to O'Hare officials which also called out the Chicago Department of Aviation. According to the Trib:

      

The suburb of Bensenville, long embroiled in a fight against O'Hare's expansion, recently relented, accepting the fate of hundreds of houses and other sites, such as St. John's United Church of Christ cemetery. And now as we await the demolition of these locations, one Chicagoist reader - Paul Petrowsky - made it over there to capture some of the scenes in this new ghost town. But if you get the urge to do the same, be careful. Check out Paul's full set here.

• Mayor Daley and Governor Quinn are defending the $16 million price tag on the state's tourism spending. If gubernatorial opponent Dan Hynes thinks that's steep now, wait til October 3rd when we might add roughly $4 billion to that.
• Officials downstate are investigating a brutal quintuple homicide in which a couple and three of their children were shot dead in Beason; a 3-year-old girl survived the shooting, but police haven't released any additional details on her condition.
• Investigators have ruled that the fire-related deaths of a couple in their Des Plaines-area home was a murder-suicide.

American Airlines has announced it's expanding its service out of O'Hare. Thanks to a magical new $2.9 billion in financing, the airline will grow its presence at four major hubs, which includes adding 57 new flights to its schedule at O'Hare starting early next year. The other three hubs seeing more AA flights will be Dallas/Ft. Worth, New York, and Miami; on the flip-side, services will be cut in St. Louis and Raleigh. One of the new flights is a non-stop to Beijing which had originally been planned for this year. Smaller markets will see more flights to and from Chicago as well, including Fargo, ND, Sioux Falls, SD, and Charleston, WV. [Tribune, Amer. Airlines]

Former Blago adviser Chris Kelly has reached a plea deal in regards to money laundering and mail fraud for a kickback scheme involving roofing work at O'Hare. Kelly's trial was set to begin tomorrow, but a potential plea agreement had been reported earlier by both the Tribune and Sun-Times. The Trib's Jeff Coen, though, updated the situation when he tweeted from the courthouse: "Pleading to count 1 and 14." He also added, "he pleads for 57 mos." We're waiting for confirmation from Coen, but it seems that could be Kelly's sentence for this plea deal. Kelly still faces charges stemming from his involvement with Blago. But it seems Kelly is already hard at work trying to make amends. Update: the Sun-Times' Natasha Korecki confirms the 57-month sentence which will be served after he serves 37-months from a previous case.

Renewing his previous calls for federal funds to expand O'Hare, Mayor Daley told a room full of airline executives that it seems like the government has forgotten about the airline industry. Citing the jobs created by his airport expansion, (which is behind schedule, over budget and under a federal corruption investigation), the mayor bemoaned the paltry $12 million he got from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a sum he touted as "better than nothing".

The new O'Hare runway opened to much fanfare (and controversy) last fall, but officials are learning it's now all rainbows and lollipops as residents of Park Ridge are complaining of worsening noise issues. In response, a commission of eight residents and an alderman was formed, called the O'Hare Airport Commission. According to the Tribune, the group, "will monitor noise, advocate for fewer flights over Park Ridge, examine environmental issues, and make recommendations for reducing airplane noise in homes and schools." [Tribune]

Seems United has got things churning again out at O'Hare as the check-in kiosks are back online. But it'll take some time to untangle from today's earlier mess so we still highly recommend you check your flight status online if you're flying the friendly skies. [CBN]

The timing couldn't be worse: as people prepare to leave town for the holiday weekend, a computer glitch has left United Airlines at a standstill at O'Hare. The glitch is preventing passengers from checking in and keeping flights grounded. A spokeswoman has said that United flights are landing but taking a while to proceed to the correct gate. A WGN helicopter flew by and the news crew estimated a line of around 2,000 passengers extending outside the United terminal. On their website, United has issued the following statement:

Above, you'll find two magazine covers. On the left, this month's Esquire cover featuring model Bar Rafaeli and on the right, this month's GQ cover featuring actor Sacha Baron Cohen as his character Bruno (who ohbytheway has that Bruno movie opening soon). Now, guess which one the managers at the O'Hare Hudson News branches have decided to cover up with black wrapping usually reserved for more provocative magazines such as Hustler. It seems Cohen's/Bruno's pose was a wee bit too much for Hudson News while Rafaeli was apparently easier on the eyes. The Trib dug into the subject a bit and here's what they came up with:

If you're flying through Terminal Two at O'Hare this weekend, Starbucks won't be around to meet your caffeine needs. The coffee shop has been shut down by the Dumpster Task Force thanks to insects. A visit was made on June 4th when a warning was issued and the shop was shut down yesterday when a return visit yielded the same results as before. No word on when the shop will be reopened. [CBS 2]

It was 30 years today that American Airlines Flight 191, from O'Hare to Los Angeles, crashed shortly after take-off, killing all 271 people on board and two more on the ground and remains the deadliest single airliner crash in U.S. history. As the plane proceeded to take off, the number one engine on the left wing separated from the plane, flew over the wing, and crashed on the runway behind the plane. Yet the plane continued with its take off, eventually reaching a height of around 300 feet before banking to the left and then crashing, striking a hangar at the old Ravenswood Airport.

Rome may not have been built in a day, but an O'Hare runway was reworked in one eight-hour, overnight shift recently. The New York-based company, Hi-Lite Markings Inc., did the remodeling work on the central 10-28 runway, called "one of the busiest runways in the world" by the Tribune, last week. The move was part of the airport's $6.6 billion modernization project and is meant to reduce the number of intersections between runways.

About 24 Hi-Lite employees used specialized equipment to shorten the runway to 9,000 feet from 13,000 feet. First they stripped paint and then applied a fresh coat.

• Major airlines are set to do the hokey pokey at O'Hare on June 1 and United will be sharing space at Terminal 1 with Continental.
• Michael Norton, owner of Norton Sweet Shop - a West Side convenience store - was shot and killed in an attempted robbery last night.
• More change coming to Chicago's parking meters: by the end of the year, 3,000 cash-free payment boxes - on which you can use credit cards - will be installed.

This weekend’s weather is wreaking havoc all over the place. More than 100 flights at O’Hare were cancelled due to the weather. Delays averaged more than two hours yesterday. As of this morning, the Aviation Department had not reported any delays for today.

While Mayor Daley has spent most of the last several months huffing and puffing about the Olympics, Al Sanchez, and conflicts with the police, the City has quietly been building a back-up 911 center at O'Hare meant to be used if a terrorist attack or natural disaster renders the current West Loop 911 center useless.

Mayor Daley and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin announced that O'Hare won a $12 million dollar grant for improvements to the airport, as part of the city's first economic recovery program. About $5 million of those funds will be used to replace runway pavement, and nearly $7 million will be used to widen a taxiway. "Both of these projects are important for the safe and efficient operation of this airport," Daley told CBS2. "They couldn't have been done at this time without the assistance of the federal grant." The mayor also pointed out that none of the funding will be used for the O'Hare Expansion Project, which is currently behind schedule and about $130 million over budget.

A 12-year-old Naperville boy who had gone missing, along with his family's SUV, was found this morning unharmed at O'Hare Airport. Earlier reports of the boy reported on the boy's tendency to sleepwalk but officials say that played no role in this incident and that the boy drove away under "his own free will." Police considered his disappearance a runaway situation. Police were able to find the SUV's tracks in the snow and follow them. Said Police Commander Dave Hoffman, "The tracks were all over the place. It was pretty apparent it was an inexperienced driver."

• A white supremacist/Satanist in Muncie has been sentenced to a year in jail for biting a boy.
• The CTA is adding 24 more routes to it's Bus Tracker program.
• Looks like a plan at O'Hare could wind up forcing several airlines to relocate from their current terminal positions.

Mayor Daley met with federal lawmakers Tuesday to try and convince them that Chicago should get $50 million dollars to help fund the O'Hare expansion. Daley is hoping that the funds will come from the economic stimulus plan that Congress is preparing to send to the president. "The job stimulus package is vital," Daley said at a news conference. "It's worse than a recession out there. It's a crisis." Without the funding, the mayor fears the project will fall behind its scheduled 2014 completion date. "Infrastructure is key," Daley said. "All these things will put blue- and white-collar people back to work." The project is currently behind schedule and about $130 million over budget.

• Today's "totally not a surprise" headline: "O'Hare remains worst for on-time departures."
• In the wake of job and budget cuts, the ER at the University of Chicago Medical Center is about to get a little more selective in who it takes in.
• The man who killed himself after a police chase in L.A. last night has been identified as former Chicagoan Mustafa "Moe" Mustafa.

In the wake of the Miracle On The Hudson, Chicago's O'Hare is taking a step forward in the War on Fowls. Within six weeks, O'Hare will receive a special radar used for tracking flocks of birds. Such a radar would allow flights to delay or re-route flights to avoid potentially hazardous flocks of birds, like that which brought down the U.S. Airways jet a few weeks ago. You're on notice, Hekyll and Jekyll.

Traffic at O’Hare crawls to its lowest since 1994, which isn’t great news considering the City of Chicago is spending about $15 billion to modernize the airport by 2014. The FAA released data this week showing incoming and outgoing flights were down last year to 881,566 at O’Hare and 266,341 at Midway, the worst for that airport since 1997.