New runway reduces O'Hare slowdowns but creates noise woes
New numbers on O'Hare International Airport's newest runway show it's chipping away at delays, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.
Airplanes started landing on the runway located on the far north side of O'Hare on Nov. 20, 2008.
It was the first to be constructed since 1971 and is part of a more than $8 billion plan to create six parallel runways and a western terminal at O'Hare intended to increase capacity and reduce delays.
For the first nine months of 2008, O'Hare ranked 29th in on-time arrival performance out of the nation's 31 major airports, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
For the same period in 2009, O'Hare moved up to 20th.
So far, "we're happy with the new runway; we figured it would help a little and it has helped a little," FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said Tuesday. "The other runways that come on line will help even more when O'Hare begins to grow."
Fewer people flying
The improvement, however, has to be factored in with fewer people flying because of the slumping economy and airlines cutting capacity to try and save money.
For example, flight operations at O'Hare from December 2007 through October 2008 totaled 820,468. In the same 11 months right after the runway opened through to October 2009, there were 760,135 operations, a drop of 7.4 percent.
The FAA noted that in terms of delays it is solely responsible for related to air-traffic control, those numbers dropped by nearly 63 percent after the runway was built. In terms of time, that is 4.67 million minutes of FAA-related delays cut down to 1.55 million, or 67 percent, from the December 2007 to October 2008 period compared to December 2008 through October 2009.
Those figures, however, don't account for other factors, such as weather or airline issues, that keep aircraft on the tarmac.
The agency projected that the average delay per aircraft operation will decrease from 16.2 minutes prior to runway construction to 5 minutes when the O'Hare expansion is finished.
The city of Chicago has pledged to complete the work by 2014. Funding for construction is still a major concern but local opposition to the modernization and litigation is dwindling. Last week, Bensenville and Chicago settled lawsuits that had slowed the city's efforts.
The FAA's most recent numbers indicate that since the commissioning of the north runway, used primarily for arrivals, the average flight arrival rate at O'Hare increased from 91 an hour to 98.
The decline in air travel connected to the recession has caused doubts about the affordability and need for the revamped airport.
Molinaro said the project is still important.
"When O'Hare begins to grow and it will begin to grow, we'll be prepared so we can handle the growth in flights," he said. "The needle is pointed in the right direction."
But not if you live in Park Ridge.
Peak time or all the time?
The new north runway routes aircraft over the tops of homes unaccustomed to the level and frequency of jet noise they're now experiencing almost daily.
"And at night the cargo boys kick in and go all hours, so no one's sleeping here," said Gene Spanos, Park Ridge resident.
"I thought it was supposed to be an extra runway for days like today when the cloud cover is low," said Dave Schmidt, Park Ridge mayor.
Before its debut, the widely held thought in Park Ridge was that the new northern runway would be used principally in bad weather -- to give O'Hare three arrival runways and ease weather delays.
The FAA says no. Its plan all along -- written into its environmental impact statement years ago -- was to use the new runway for arrivals no matter what the weather. Today that runway is handling roughly 15 percent of O'Hare's arrivals, and the FAA says that number will go up, not down.
"The jet aircraft noise is intolerable," Spanos said.
Spanos and other residents in the approach path say their property values have tanked. For months, they've been organizing to fight -- perhaps ultimately in court but the O'Hare build-out is well underway, and the FAA's noise contours forecast more noise for Park Ridge, not less.
Still city leaders hope they can recruit legislative help to mitigate the noise volume, and at the very least end the late night cargo flights.
"I talked to the FAA. They say it's the pilots. The pilots say its the air traffic controllers, and so it's a shell game, and Park Ridge is in the middle," said Spanos.
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <object id="otvPlayer" width="400" height="268"> <param name="movie" value="http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/static/flash/embeddedPlayer/swf/otvEmLoader.swf?version=&station=wls§ion=&mediaId=7137302&cdnRoot=http://cdn.abclocal.go.com&webRoot=http://abclocal.go.com&site=" ></param> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param> <param name="allowNetworking" value="all"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param> <embed id="otvPlayer" width="300" height="201" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="all" allowfullscreen="true" src="http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/static/flash/embeddedPlayer/swf/otvEmLoader.swf?version=&station=wls§ion=&mediaId=7137302&cdnRoot=http://cdn.abclocal.go.com&webRoot=http://abclocal.go.com&site="> </embed> </object> </ul> <h2>ABC 7 Chicago</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=7137230">New O'Hare runway 1 year old <span class="date">[11/24/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>