Guiness Book of Records We Don't Need

By Matt Wood in Miscellaneous on Dec 6, 2005 4:49PM

Atlanta is gunning for us on all fronts. First they lay claim to the title of "World's Largest Aquarium." Now their airport could become "World's Busiest" this year. Through November, they have a 7,400 flight edge on O'Hare, a net gain of almost 34,000 from last year. Chicagoist is also convinced that the Braves told Rafael Furcal to sign with the Dodgers instead of the Cubs once they realized he wanted to leave Atlanta.

O'Hare officials blame the decreased number of flights on new domestic flight restrictions. All year, American and United Airlines (i.e. most of O'Hare's traffic) were limited to 88 flights per hour between noon and 9 PM. Meanwhile Atlanta benefitted from Delta Airlines' shifting many of its flights there from Dallas/Ft. Worth.

Chicagoist understands that there is a certain amount of prestige that comes with being the "World's Busiest Airport," but after having spent our fair share of mind-numbing hours there for delays, cancellations, etc, we also don't think it's such a wonderful thing. Wouldn't it be nice to pull back a little, take some strain off the airport and make the whole Chicago traveling experience a little more efficient? Of course we have no idea what the economic impact of fewer flights would be; we're sure some crank out there will tell us that an idle airport means that all the animals at the Lincoln Park Zoo will die for lack of tourists and the streets will swarm with vagabonds banging on five-gallon buckets. But wouldn't it be cooler to sit back and dismiss all this "World's Biggest/Busiest/Tallest" nonsense? "Yeah, we used to be the busiest airport, but we let Atlanta have it," we could say. "Who wants to deal with that mess?"