As the first new runway in Chicago in 37 years is set to open Thursday, major airlines serving O’Hare International Airport have unanimously called for halting the next phase of the ambitious expansion project, according to documents obtained exclusively by the Tribune.
American Airlines and United Airlines, the two largest carriers at the airport, said the O’Hare plan is flawed, according to the statements sent to city and federal authorities that oppose more spending on the project.
They called Chicago’s effort to move ahead with the project “premature and inappropriate” because of the decline in air travel and the airline industry’s uncertain future.
Delta Air Lines executives said Chicago failed to do its homework and they accused the city of mounting an “impulsive grab for [tax] funds.”
Marking an unprecedented break with City Hall that contradicts the public appearance of solidarity on the $15 billion O’Hare project, executives at six of O’Hare’s largest airlines advised city planners in letters sent this summer to downsize the large-scale remake of the airport to better fit the new economic realities of the struggling industry.
The airlines’ position poses the latest threat to Mayor Richard Daley’s efforts to modernize cramped and outdated facilities at O’Hare by 2014, a process critical to Chicago’s bid to land the 2016 Olympics.
The goal of the O’Hare project is to replace the airport’s outmoded layout of intersecting runways with a parallel runway system that promotes more efficient arrival and departure of airplanes. New passenger terminals are also envisioned to balance the growth in airfield capacity.
But American and United labeled the city’s plan for a new passenger terminal on the west side of the airfield as “ill-conceived.”
The letters also were sent to the Federal Aviation Administration, which must determine that the benefits of the expansion exceed the costs before the agency can approve federal grants and the use of passenger ticket taxes to pay for the project.
The Tribune this week reviewed the letters filed by American, United, Delta, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and ANA-All Nippon Airways. An additional airline, Aer Lingus, did not provide reasons for its opposition.
The tough new airline stance went far beyond a longtime reluctance to commit financially to the second phase, which includes key runways needed to increase O’Hare’s flight capacity.
“Unfortunately, the city did not accept the more modest and financially prudent approach,” United and American wrote in their dissent.
In a written response to the airlines’ statements, the city told the FAA that the airlines let short-term financial concerns overshadow the long-term gains to be reaped from reconfiguring O’Hare.
“They would have the city stop OMP [O’Hare Modernization Program] development now, and restart it when the ‘current market reality’ improves,” the city said. Doing so “will cause several years of delay and add significantly to its cost.”
The airlines also complained the proposed western terminal’s distance from the main terminal complex “is not conducive to the current or any proposed hub, spoke or international airline operations” and would disrupt passenger and baggage connections.
Seven years after Daley announced the project, the city lacks a strategy to pay for all of it, despite acquiring hundreds of homes and businesses in Elk Grove Village and Bensenville for runways that may not be built.
In addition to the airlines balking, the city’s efforts to line up private investors have also fizzled.
The $565 million runway that opens Thursday on the northern flank of O’Hare is designed only to help reduce delays, and it barely will make a difference, according to the FAA. A new $65 million control tower exclusively to serve the runway also begins operation Thursday.
“Average delays with the new runway are expected to drop seven-tenths of a minute,” FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said. “Further improvements will be seen with additional runways.”
The airlines have lobbied for new runways at O’Hare for nearly 40 years, and they still see the need for long-term expansion. But this year, they have dug in their heels to oppose a city request to the FAA to use about $182 million in passenger ticket taxes for design and engineering work on the second phase. The rest of the project will be financed by general airport revenue bonds and federal funds.
The FAA is expected to make a decision next spring.
The city countered the airlines’ charge of reckless decision-making by implying the companies had an underlying financial motive to halt the expansion project that would ultimately force travelers to pay higher airfares. “These carriers have an interest in restricting access to O’Hare by new competitive carriers,” the city’s response said.
After huge losses this decade, U.S. carriers are cutting costs, shrinking operations and questioning whether ambitious airport expansion plans crafted in the 1990s aviation boom are still needed.
Only nine of the nation’s 50 largest airports have increased capacity since 2000.
“You just can’t burden airlines with the cost of facilities or programs if they don’t make sense anymore,” said Laura McKee of the Air Transport Association, an airline trade group.
Asked Wednesday how she is going to move the project forward, Rosemarie Andolino, director of the O’Hare expansion project, preferred to focus on the moment of inaugurating the first new runway at O’Hare since 1971.
“We’ve got to really relish in the day tomorrow,” she said. She said the airlines should feel “comfort and appreciation for what we have done” to complete the early elements of the expansion within budget.
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jhilkevitch@tribune.com
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