Simon Schus

I’ve done it recently. The BA Lounge is closed though until recently they had a BA Lounge sign up in the main restaurant area which made it look like the lounge was open. In the BA terminal, the Precheck experience is quite poor later in the evening as they made everybody take electronics out… but allowed you to take shoes off. I questioned it and was told that the pre-check was not operational. I had to go through security because there was no airside bus transfer when I did my transit, so I had to do a landside bus transfer which didn’t take long at all (5 minutes?). I don’t know if the airside transfer option has started up again. I know that there were plans for some new transfer options (perhaps a electric train) but I don’t know if that work has been halted or not.

The Admirals Club is decent. I didn’t have chance to spend time for my AA-BA transfer, as it was on reduced hours. However I’ve been back since just on AA and it is pretty good. The queues for the bar can take a while, and the Flagship Lounge floor isn’t accessible at the moment (I was told it might reopen by the end of the year). The staff there are great particularly at the kiosks on the Admirals Club floor, as they have helped me out so kindly during disruption before.

As for the BA terminal, hopefully the food service has improved there. There was nothing open when I visited apart from a Burger King (I think) with staff who got very cranky about serving people near the time of closing. Hopefully, other food services have opened now though.

In my opinion, the BA terminal experience is very poor at ORD, but the AA terminals fare better. The only issue I really notice with the AA terminals is that they are ridiculously busy (not as busy as CLT, but still pretty busy). I’d suggest staying in the AA side of things, particularly the Admirals Club, for as long as possible assuming that any checked luggage is throughchecked.