O'Hare Tops U.S. Airports for 2025 Takeoffs, Landings
Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) opened 2026 with a new operational bragging right, it led the United States in aircraft takeoffs and landings in 2025, based on preliminary Federal Aviation Administration totals reported by multiple outlets. The travelers most affected are anyone connecting through O'Hare, plus Chicago origin travelers who fly during peak banks when congestion compounds quickly. The practical next step is to treat O'Hare as a high option, high volatility hub, build buffer into connections, and watch day of travel FAA flow programs before leaving for the airport.
The preliminary FAA tally cited by Chicago area reporting puts O'Hare at 857,392 aircraft operations for 2025, edging Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) at 807,625 operations. Atlanta can still dominate on passengers in a given year, but this specific ranking is about runway movements, not traveler volume, and it tends to track how aggressively airlines schedule banks at a hub.
Who Is Affected
Connecting travelers are the first group in the blast radius because O'Hare's appeal, nonstop breadth plus dense connection banks, is the same structure that magnifies small slowdowns. When arrival rates dip for weather, deicing, low visibility, or ATC spacing, the most common traveler facing symptoms are longer taxi times, gate holds while waiting for an open stand, and misconnects that occur even when the inbound flight "only" slips modestly.
Chicago area flyers see a different trade, more frequencies can improve departure choice and rebooking odds, but only if you are not trapped in the most constrained windows. Peak morning and late afternoon waves tend to be where lines, ramp congestion, and gate turnover pressure show up first, and that can matter more than the headline ranking when you are trying to make a meeting, a cruise departure, or a same day return.
Travelers using Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) are not immune because Chicago's system wide tempo is high. Midway ranked 38th nationally with 210,930 operations in the same reporting, which means irregular operations at one airport can spill into the other through hotels, ground transportation demand, and rebooking patterns when Chicago becomes the recovery waypoint for a wider Midwest weather day.
What Travelers Should Do
If you are connecting through O'Hare, widen buffers immediately, and be realistic about what a "legal" connection time means during winter and peak banks. When your itinerary includes the last flight of the day onward, treat that leg as the fragile one, and move earlier if the trip has a hard arrival requirement, because recovery options thin fast once cancellations start stacking.
Use decision thresholds for rebooking instead of waiting for a gate announcement. If your inbound delay pushes your connection margin below about 60 minutes for domestic to domestic, or below about 90 minutes for itineraries that add terminal changes or extra process, move to a protected alternative while seats still exist. O'Hare's density can help you when you rebook early, and it can hurt you if you wait until the customer service line forms.
Over the next 24 to 72 hours before travel, monitor the FAA airport status view, plus your airline's app for gate changes and aircraft swaps, and specifically watch for ATC flow programs that meter arrivals into Chicago. On days when a wider system event is in play, comparisons like Flight Delays and Airport Impacts: January 22, 2026 are useful for pattern recognition, because the early part of a disruption day can look deceptively calm at O'Hare until the first constrained bank arrives.
How It Works
"O'Hare is busiest" sounds like a simple trophy, but it reflects how schedule design, gate capacity, and air traffic control constraints interact. First order effects start at the runways and ramps, a higher movement count means more taxi congestion, more gate turns per hour, and less slack when a single arrival arrives late and blocks the next departure. Those frictions are usually invisible on a blue sky day, then become obvious when deicing, low ceilings, or wind driven runway configurations reduce throughput.
Second order ripple effects spread through the network because O'Hare is a major connecting hub. If a bank arrives late, outbound banks depart late, aircraft and crews misposition, and the delay moves to other cities as those aircraft rotate. That is why travelers in unrelated markets can feel Chicago induced lateness later in the day, and why an "ordinary" delay at a hub can convert into an overnight when the final bank cannot be rebuilt.
Third order effects hit traveler logistics beyond flights. More irregular operations pressure near airport hotel inventory, pushes rideshare and taxi demand into surges, and increases the chance that baggage misses the same connection you do because transfers become time critical under congestion. This also feeds into airline competitive behavior at O'Hare, where published flying can be tied to gate footprint and schedule strategy, a dynamic explored in O'Hare Gate Fight Drives United, American Flight Surge.
Chicago's own buildout timeline matters here because capacity adds change where bottlenecks move. Local reporting tied to the FAA preliminary totals also points to major infrastructure projects, including a new Concourse D plan and broader terminal ambitions, which can improve long term resilience but create near term wayfinding and gate assignment churn as construction phases advance. When you combine that with a nationwide ATC system that can be staffing constrained at key facilities, the safe traveler posture is to assume that reliability comes from buffer and optionality, not from a ranking, an argument that aligns with U.S. Air Traffic Control Privatization: Reality Check.