Today marks the completion of the first stage of the O'Hare expansion as its new $450 million runway opened for business. The first flight to land on the runway (the first new one in the city in 37 years) was welcomed by Mayor Daley as well as U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and Federal Aviation Administration chief Bobby Sturgell. Washington D.C.'s Dulles and Seattle's airports also had runway grand openings today. Supporters are promising that the new runway will help alleviate O'Hare's well-known delays.

Synonymous with air-travel angst for decades, O'Hare's delays persist despite a more than 8 percent fall in traffic this year. Mother Nature has been the airport's main vulnerability because when bad weather reduced visibility, controllers could land just two planes at a time -- reducing capacity by a third. more ›