Major ORD announcement 15 Jul 2016 re new terminal and gates
 

Crain's Chicago reporting new terminal 2 and new gates to be announced on Friday.http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/...20160714190718

Looks like it will dramatically change AA gates over the next 10-years.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...ens-soon-after

Pretty exciting stuff.

Looks like if this all happens, T1 remains intact but the C concourse expands, presumably to shift UA's regionals from T2 over.

It's not just T2 that gets shaken up - in the rendering T3 is as well - Concourses G, H, and K are gone, so AA would end up taking a significant piece of the new T2.

I think the C concourse expansion would likely need to happen first in order to enable the complete demolishing of T2 at one time.

New Gates & Potential New Terminal Coming to ORD
 

Crain's is reporting the city has reached a deal for a big O'Hare expansion.

Phase one is adding 9 gates to Terminal 5 (including a second A380 gate) and opening the door to using T5 for domestic flights. That is scheduled to be done by 2019.

Phase two is rebuilding on Terminal 2 and possibly adding some more midfield terminals and expanding Concourse C.

United, American, Delta and Spirit all want more gates.

Schematics at the link below (sorry if it is behind a paywall).
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...ens-soon-after

From the sketch, it appears that G, H and K are basically removed, but I don't see why. No new runways will be built any closer to the central terminal area, so the space vacated by G, H and K would appear to be "wasted" space.

Maybe it will be explained tomorrow.

Based on the sketch, looks like some long walks/underground train rides from drop off to the midfield concourses.

No one is reporting this as anything other than the 9 gate expansion to T5, the rest is still vaporware. As a native, I never get too excited about the timeliness, cost estimates, or scope of local public works projects. I could be wrong and the press conference could be the grand unveiling, but all the articles now are speculative on the larger terminals.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...714-story.html

IF this happens, and things like this in Chicago are always a big if, it would completely transform ORD into a modern airport. I'm please to see that AA would get new digs as well as ecstatic to see T2 be replaced. I fly DL a lot and T2 is a total, miserable dump.

I think the real shortcoming of this project is the failure to address the very real limitation of T5. As far as international terminals go it is a complete dog. horrible security layout, limited services one inside security (better than it was but still lousy) and inadequate space for the airline lounges, which are ridiculously tiny. Taking on another five gates just seems to make a bad situation worse.

Could use that space as RON pads.

No mention of connecting T5 to the rest of the terminals though?

Anyone viewing this as anything other than a first draft proposal (with countless revisions to come) is not living in reality.

The only things for sure are the intermodal center with new hotel, the second new hotel at T5, the replacement of all 15 current ATS trains with 36 new ones, and the expansion of meeting space etc at the O'Hare Hilton.

The Crain's article over-sold the T-2/T-3 rebuilding; the Chicago Tribune clearly reported that the massive rebuilding was preliminary. No doubt UA and AA signed on to the T-5 expansion, but they haven't yet agreed to tearing down T-2 and T-3.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/...20160715105926

This graphic from the article looks hardly anything like the current airport layout.

Looking at the graphic and seeing a de-icing pad. I would think this would be real benefit if it helps eliminate the need to keep the planes at the gate for it. Should help quite a bit in winter.

It seems to go much faster at the gate in ORD rather than at places like DEN, where the deicing pads can have quite a queue.

So current Terminal 3 is going away?