You’ve consulted a travel agent, the Internet or a favorite airline to book a flight, perhaps to Florida where you’ll board a ship for a Caribbean cruise. Or maybe you have a new job and are about to fly to Dallas or Denver or New York on your first business trip.
Before you catch your plane, though, you have to get to O’Hare International Airport, famous as the world’s busiest airport. You could drive there yourself but, depending on where you live, you could also take a CTA elevated train, Metra commuter train, Pace suburban bus, privately operated motorcoach, taxi, limousine or shared-ride van service.
Competition to get travelers to and from the airport is fierce. Chicago’s Department of Aviation lists 136 taxi and limousine companies that serve O’Hare, 44 of which cover the entire metropolitan area. Problem is, many people don’t know all the options. Even friends of Dennis Culloton, chief spokesman for the Chicago Department of Aviation, sometimes learn by happenstance.
“I knew a guy who lived close to the Blue Line (the CTA elevated train line that serves O’Hare), so whenever he traveled by air, he took that to get here,” Culloton said. “Then he moved to the suburbs and learned from colleagues and neighbors that the best way to get here from there was to call one of the limo companies. That was rich for him, and it was more expensive than the cabs. There are a lot of good options. Clearly, people can drive here themselves, but shared-ride and public transportation are so numerous and reasonably priced that I encourage those.”
The same conundrum exists for those flying into O’Hare and trying to get home, or to someone else’s house. To help people sort out the options O’Hare has travel information booths in the baggage levels of each terminal and in other areas of the airport.
“Where are the shuttle buses? Where’s the CTA line? Where are the limos? We get questions like those all the time,” Culloton said. “The airport can be overwhelming to some travelers. Our information reps provide answers to lots of questions travelers have.”
Of course, those questions come from people who have flown into the airport. What’s the best way for you to get there? Cost, convenience and comfort all factor into the decision, as does where you live. Not all options are available everywhere, and learning what’s available takes some digging. The Yellow Pages and local travel agencies are good places to start, as are neighbors or co-workers who fly regularly.
David Neubauer of Will County’s Homer Township, who routinely flies on business in his job as a product line manager for Andrew Corp. in Orland Park, either drives himself or takes a limousine, depending on how long his trip will last.
“If the trip is going to take longer than four or five days, then I use a limo because it’s less than the cost of parking at the airport,” Neubauer said. “If it’s a two- or three-day trip, I’ll probably drive myself. I prefer to drive myself. Having a car at the airport for me is better. When I have to wait up to a half hour for the limo to pick me up after I get to the airport, that gets to be pretty much.”
Neubauer actually lives and works closer to Chicago’s other major airport, Midway, than to O’Hare, so he uses both airports. He said he often flies out of Midway to get to Dallas because Midway has a better schedule of flights to and from that city. He uses O’Hare for most other flights.
“I prefer O’Hare,” he said. “Midway seems more a bus stop than an airport to me, and parking there is horrendous.”
So is traffic. As congested as traffic near O’Hare can get, he said traffic near Midway is worse. “The drive to Midway takes as long as the drive to O’Hare,” he said. “Traffic congestion at O’Hare is not bad. It’s mostly expressway.”
He gets no argument from Bruce Lerner, owner of South Suburban Limousine and Airport Service of Oak Lawn, whose cars sometimes chauffeur Neubauer and other Andrew Corp. employees to and from the airports.
“Travel time is a big consideration out here,” he said. “There are no good ways to get to Midway.”
He also agrees with Neubauer’s parking cost analysis to decide when to use a limo, to a point. “You also need to consider convenience,” he said. “If you drive yourself, you’re fighting traffic, and it can be a long walk from the parking lots to the terminals. We fight the traffic and drop you off right at the terminals. So we can save people time.”
Frequent flyer Jay Cors, a field service representative from Aurora, agrees the money spent on limousine service is a good investment. He gets to and from the airport in an Aurora Limousine Service car.
“I’ve been using them for years now,” he says as he waits for his limo pickup outside O’Hare’s United Airlines baggage claim area. “It’s the convenience. I don’t have to fight traffic and go to the parking lots. They drop me off at the terminal and pick me up outside baggage claim. They’re prompt. If you can find a good limo company, it’s a lot easier than driving and parking.”
As regional livery services, South Suburban and Aurora Limo can often charge less than larger competitors based in other areas. But large firms boast advantages the smaller firms do not have. One of the largest limo firms is My Chauffeur Limousine Service in Schiller Park. With 128 vehicles in its fleet, My Chauffeur reduces the chances that a person might have trouble booking a ride, said Jeff Wiechowski, My Chauffeur’s director of operations. My Chauffeur also accommodates customers from throughout a seven-county area. And the company is price-competitive in its target areas, including the west suburbs.
“This business is predominantly territorial, with each company staking out the areas where it’s most competitive,” Wiechowski said. “It’s not wild-animal territorial, although it feels that way sometimes. Prices can be two or three times as high from one company to another, depending on the territory. But it’s not like there are boundaries. It’s wide open out there. We’ve taken people to Texas. We’ve gone to Detroit. We’ve been to the Indy 500 more than once. If somebody wants to pay the price, we’ll go.”
So if a person wants the comfort and convenience of a limo, most limo companies — with at least a day’s notice — can arrange a ride for any hour of the day or night. But it pays to call around.
Many suburban taxi companies also are cashing in on the O’Hare transportation trade. One of the largest is American Taxi, which has 460 vehicles in its fleet, up from the two cabs it started with in Northbrook in 1976. General manager Dan Coyne said the company covers the entire metro area, but its stronghold is Cook, DuPage and Lake Counties. The company is about to make a push south into communities that include Tinley Park, Palos Hills and Alsip.
“We’re less costly than limos and we don’t have shared rides,” Coyne said. “It’s quiet, and you’re alone. Make a reservation with a limo company and cancel, and they still charge you. You also need to give them advance notice for a change. With us, you don’t need to make a reservation a day in advance. But with a cab company, there might not always be a cab available when you want it. We’re trying to duplicate the limos’ success by booking early-morning rides the night before.”
Like most suburban cab companies, American Taxi charges flat fees for transportation to and from the airports, so if there is a traffic tieup, a rider doesn’t need to worry that the meter is running. Chicago cab companies, which may operate in the suburbs, use the meter.
To O’Hare, American Taxi charges $15.50 in Park Ridge; $25 in Summit; $54 in Joliet; and $58 in Harvey.
As with limo companies, taxi companies have their preferred territories, so comparison shopping can pay off. Taxi and limo company officials also caution riders to remember to leave themselves plenty of time to get to the airport. Traffic accidents, bad weather and road work can slow traffic to a crawl. If in doubt, give the limo or cab company your flight itinerary and let them estimate when they should pick you up.
Priced somewhere between many limo and taxi services is Airport Express, a shared-ride van service run by Continental Air Transport. Airport Express has kiosks at the baggage claim areas of each terminal and a line of vans waiting outside. Tell the person at the kiosk your destination, pay the fare, load your luggage into the van and in a few minutes you’re on your way.
Airport Express also will make pickups at a person’s home for transportation to the airport, but that requires advance notice.
Continental Air Transport President John McCarthy said vans usually leave O’Hare within 10 minutes of a person’s boarding. If others are heading to the same community, you’ll share the ride. If no one else comes along within the 10 minutes, you’ll ride alone.
“At the airport, people don’t need to notify us in advance,” McCarthy said. “Our vehicles wait for you, rather than you waiting for us. We’re less expensive than limos, and we have staff at the airport to answer questions.”
Airport Express serves most of the Chicago metropolitan area and bases its prices on dropoffs at hotels. From O’Hare, the cost is as low as $42 to Joliet hotels. Home dropoff costs $5 more. Each additional person in the party costs $4 over the quoted price.
One of the big advantages of limos, taxis and the van service over other forms of transportation is that those couriers fit their schedules to customers’ needs. If you can adjust your needs to a public transportation schedule, the sacrifice in convenience is made up for by savings in dollars.
The Pace suburban bus system offers low-cost transportation (as low as $1.15, $1.25 with a transfer) to and from the airport. One way is by linking its routes with a CTA rapid transit line that serves the airport. For instance, Pace has express service from Oak Brook to the CTA Blue Line. Pace also has two routes, the 220 and 330, that serve O’Hare directly.
The 220 route runs from Glenview through Des Plaines to the airport. The 330 runs along Mannheim and LaGrange Roads south of the airport and includes the communities of Bellwood, Countryside, McCook and Melrose Park.
Monday-through-Friday service on the 220 route starts at 6 a.m. and runs through 6:30 p.m., with a bus arriving every 20 to 30 minutes. Service on the 330 route starts at 4:30 a.m. and runs through 11:15 p.m., with departures about every half hour, said Pace spokeswoman Mindy LaFlamme. Saturday service on the 220 route goes from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., with buses arriving hourly. Saturday service on the 330 route starts at 7:30 a.m.
Private bus companies also serve O’Hare and Midway. One is Tri-State Coach Line in Gary, Ind. Tri-State marketing director Dave Dufour said Tri-State has stops in Crestwood, Matteson and Harvey.
From Crestwood, Tri-State makes 31 trips a day into O’Hare. A round-trip ticket from there costs $26, one-way $14. The costs are $28 and $15 from Harvey and $30 and $16 from Matteson.
Midway fares are $22 round-trip or $12 one-way from Crestwood, $24 or $13 from Harvey and $26 or $14 from Matteson. Buses leave for Midway from Crestwood hourly and every two hours from Harvey and Matteson, he said.
“Our fares are much less than limo costs,” Dufour said. “And we are certainly an advantage (over) driving, because parking in our lots is modest or free. (The cost is $2 a day at Tri-State’s Crestwood lot.) We bring people right to the terminal. One of the problems people have with us is that it’s a bus. But ours are comfortable, roomy, tourist-class coaches. They’re the same buses we use on charter tours.”
No matter how you decide to get to or from the airport, Andrew Corp.’s Neubauer has this advice: “The worst days to travel are Monday and Friday. Try to fly out either Monday night or Tuesday morning and come back Thursday or stay till Saturday. That’s true at Midway and O’Hare. And avoid at all costs rush hours. I sometimes take a 6 (p.m.) departure to get in at 8 or 9 o’clock. It’s a lot better to get in at a time when you can relax than sitting in a car and getting road rage.”
WHEN BEING FARTHER FROM THE AIRPORT IS BETTER
Even though Chicago’s Midway Airport handles fewer flights and passengers, getting there is often more difficult than getting to O’Hare, according to Bruce Lerner, owner of South Suburban Limousine and Airport Service in Oak Lawn.
“It used to be easier to get to Midway, but now it’s easier to get to O’Hare, even from the south suburbs,” Lerner said, citing an increased number of traffic signals and a higher volume of traffic. “There’s just no easy way get to Midway anymore. The travel time from Homewood-Flossmoor is about the same to Midway as it is to O’Hare. It used to take a half-hour from there to Midway, now it’s 45 minutes to an hour.”
Not only is getting to O’Hare easier, so is getting through it, according to Lerner, who said he and other limo and taxi drivers generally prefer O’Hare because traffic flows better there. “Midway is not a friendly airport to be at anymore,” he said.
Despite working the south suburbs nearer Midway, South Suburban Limousine and Airport Service still does most of its business into and out of O’Hare.
“Since American started flying out of Midway, I’m picking up more Midway business, but a good 80 percent of my business is still from O’Hare,” Lerner said. “Most corporate clients prefer to fly United and American out of O’Hare because they have more flight options, and they like the frequent flyer mileage perks.”
Even though driving times from the south suburbs are about the same, the mileage to O’Hare is greater, so Lerner charges $10 more for rides to or from O’Hare.
From Summit, his Midway rate is $20 for a private car. He charges $43 for the Midway-Harvey drive; $45 in Orland Park, Tinley Park, Homewood and Flossmoor; and $65 in New Lenox, the areas that give him the bulk of his business. Add $10 to get to O’Hare from any of those areas in a South Suburban Limo car.
METRA RAIL SERVICE
The Metra North-Central Service Line runs between Antioch and Chicago, with a stop at O’Hare’s Parking Lot F. From there, an airport shuttle bus takes passengers to the airport People Mover, which stops at each terminal. The train costs $4.65 from Antioch to as little as $1.75 from Prospect Heights. The shuttle bus and People Mover are free.
PACE SUBURBAN BUS SERVICE
Pace operates two lines, the 220 and 330, which serve O’Hare directly. The 220 starts in Glenview and winds its way through Des Plaines and other towns. The 330 runs along Mannheim/LaGrange Road south of the airport. The cost for both lines is $1.15. Pace also serves several rapid transit stops, including an express bus from Oak Brook to the CTA’s Blue Line, which runs to the airport. From Schaumburg, Route 606 will drop off passengers at the Rosemont CTA station, where an elevated train will take them to the airport. The cost, with the CTA transfer, is $1.80.
