Chicago O'Hare's $12.5bn overhaul: new terminal, concourses and underground rail

Full text

Any traveler who has landed at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport (ORD) recently is aware that the airport is a massive construction site.

Work is well underway on the airport's delayed $12.5 billion "ORDNext" redevelopment program that includes a new Global Terminal and concourse on the site of Terminal 2, as well as two new linear satellite concourses southwest of United Airlines' Terminal 1 and a new underground train and walkway to connect it all. When complete, it will expand ORD's terminal area to around 220 gates (from 185 gates in 2018).

ORD will be nearly unrecognizable.

The ORDNext expansion of Chicago's O'Hare airport; new construction is in white. CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF AVIATION ORDNext is more than just new gates and terminals. The city views the project as critical to the competitiveness of the airport (which was formerly the world's busiest) at a time when both of its hub carriers, American Airlines and United Airlines, are eager to grow.

Growth, however, is limited by the Federal Aviation Administration's order capping flights through at least October 2027 to reduce congestion. That means airlines need to fly larger planes with more seats to grow.

Schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows that, compared to 2025, American is scheduled to fly nearly 21% more seats and United more than 13% more seats from ORD this year. Departures will be up 18% at American and 14% at United.

The latest ORDNext timeline

The next piece of the ORDNext expansion, Concourse D, is due to open in just two years, according to an Aug. 21 bond prospectus from the Chicago Department of Aviation. Connected aboveground to Concourse C, Concourse D will serve both domestic and international flights with 18 of its 19 gates capable of handling either one twin-aisle plane or two single-aisle planes when it opens by the end of 2028. International arrivals, however, cannot begin until the Global Terminal is complete.

A rendering of the new Concourse D at O'Hare. SOM AND NORVISKA Work on the Global Terminal is scheduled to begin in 2029, and it's not set to open until 2034 — at least six years later than originally planned, the prospectus shows. The terminal designed by a consortium led by the Chicago architecture firm Studio Gang is the centerpiece of the ORDNext program.

The Global Terminal "will allow for improved processing and the ability for passengers to transfer from international flights without leaving the secured area," the Chicago aviation department said.

In other words, travelers arriving on international flights and connecting to domestic ones at ORD will no longer need to schlep from Terminal 5 to the main terminal core. And, if the Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection's One Stop Security pilot expands, passengers could skip the second security screening entirely.

Additionally, the new terminal aims to highlight Chicago in a way ORD's existing terminals do not.

"We [feel] that the moment you step out of the plane into the terminal you [should] feel like you're in Chicago," Juliane Wolf, a design principal at Studio Gang, said in 2020.

Concourse D. SOM AND NORVISKA Concourse E, which is west of Concourses C and D, will serve regional jets and mainline single-aisle planes on domestic flights. It will open in two phases: a 14-gate northern segment in 2030 and a 10-gate southern segment around 2034.

First approved in 2018, ORDNext has faced multiple challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, cost increases and, as the new timeline confirms, construction delays. The project was initially budgeted at $8.5 billion, with the Global Terminal due to open in 2028.

Completed ORDNext projects include a 10-gate expansion of Terminal 5 that opened in 2023 and, more recently, a three-gate expansion to Concourse L.

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.