Chicago O'Hare Airport

Not Verified | It’s been several visits to O’Hare. Rude, aggressive, apathetic staff and TSA agents. People who are clearly irritated working with the public and want you to know. From the TSA ID reader at security checkpoint 7 near American Airlines in Terminal 3 who wants you to extend your left arm to place your phone on the reader but not move your body at all, and when you accidentally do, becomes angry and tells you how unhappy he is b/c people don’t listen, or the other agent who doesn’t explain how to place your bag on the roller but is very disappointed in your actions by yelling, “Do not push!” I get it. You hate me, you hate people, and you hate your job. I have traveled back with students from abroad to be greeted with angry agents who separated my students from me, sending them to separate security checkpoints, and rushed us so fast through lines my kids kept screwing up. TSA didn’t care. Kids were crying and the anxiety spiked. They still did not care. If you want to feel worse about your existence, go to O’Hare. They will let you know through their tones, angry looks, and aggressive actions. Something needs to change.

✅ Trip Verified | Absolutely terrible experience at Chicago O’Hare. I had just finished flying 15 hours from Dubai where I was greeted with a very rude and unhelpful airport staff. I then had to wait in line for over 2 hours for shuttle bus to get to the terminal for my connecting flight (some of which included standing outside in 38 degree weather). I had given myself 4 hours between flights and still barely made it to my gate on time. I got there as they were boarding. I heard so many people say that they were going to miss their flights because of this complete incompetence. Unacceptable.

Not Verified | Worst experience ever returning home after a 25 hour flight from Thailand. Made it through the kiosks and stood in line for 30 minutes getting closer to our turn when we were redirected to another section of kiosks - I asked why we were redirected and the girl started saying it wasn’t her fault and she didn’t know. Now I found myself standing in an even longer line. I’ve never experienced such inefficient, rude and unhelpful people at O’Hare in my life. I also don’t understand why us citizens and green card holders are in the same lines as visitors. Used to be a breeze getting through customs - not any more!

Not Verified | My first time traveling internationally. The TSA that went through my luggage were completely unprofessional, condescending, rude, and disrespectful. He said "it's not my fault you don't know how to read signs and you are traveling" (after I told him I wasn't sure I was in the right place and needed guidance for my first time traveling internationally). I am Human Resource Manager, I am so disappointed in the verbal treatment from this male TSA. I understand they have a job to do. It does not include verbally abusing paying travelers. We are all tired and stressed (airport staff / travelers). In any other United States job this gentlemen would have either been terminated or severely disciplined. He made me feel unsafe and violated.

✅ Trip Verified | I was flying in to Minneapolis from Hong Kong, and having chosen United, needed to pass transit at either Chicago or San Francisco- seeing as he overall travel time would be shorter via Chicago, I opted for them. Despite most people I know telling me that O’Hare is awful, I thought it was okay overall - in fact, I found them quite efficient. I arrived in a Chicago on a Thursday. Being Canadian, I was able to breeze past immigration through their automated clearance system, and got through in 10 minutes. The immigration officer had a serious expression, and waved me through really quickly. My bags arrived shortly after I reached he reclaim area. Seeing as my flight arrived 2 hours early, I tried to get switched to the earlier flight, and after the United ground staff dealt dealt with the frustratingly lengthy process of rebooking my flight, she was able to land me a seat on the flight and helped me ensure that my bag would be checked in to that flight despite there only being a one hour window to departure. This also meant that I needed to rush to Terminal 1 from the international terminal. Rushing to Terminal 1 is normally easy, seeing as they have that automated people mover, but it’s undergoing long-term maintenance/being rebuilt in sections, so it’s closed on weekdays. This meant that I was at the mercy of the shuttle bus, which was obviously slower to board and arrive, due to the very peculiar traffic design between terminals. There was this one intersection that allowed one bus through at a time and took close to 10 minutes to clear. Despite all that rushing, I was still able to get to my flight in time, partly due to their speedy TSA crew that in dealing with the backlog decided that’s passengers could go through with their shoes on. My flight back from Minneapolis occurred without a hitch, though arriving with a 3 hour layover gave me a chance to really soak up the architecture and movie filming locations in the 3 main terminals. I probably could’ve also tried their dining, but alas, I have not. When it comes to waiting for flights, the seats at Terminal 1 are old, but adequate. I appreciate their provision of outlets near seating for device charging, but it would probably be even better if they also provided USB ports on the outlets, and fitted universal outlets seeing as travellers may not have the correct adaptors. Also, Boingo is still the main WiFi provider in the airport, but they now offer a few hours of unlimited wifi every time you watch an ad. The ads aren’t that long, so I’d argue that that’s okay, and for cost recovery, it’s not too annoying.

Not Verified | The most rude, unfriendly, unhelpful, and unprofessional employees. If I politely ask for your help, don’t tell me “I’m not getting involved, you know the rules, you have to figure out what to do.” I’ve only flown once before, 3 years ago - your job is to help me. You get paid to help me. I’m not saying you have to be the nicest, but the attitude from all 5 employees I came into contact with, is just inappropriate! Horrible..

Not Verified | Horrible. Seriously O’Hare get your transit up and running. After landing I had to wait over half an hour outside for a bus to come pick us up and take us to the parking lot. Unacceptable if you’re going to shut down the train have more buses at least.

Not Verified | I had a horrible experience at Chicago O'Hare recently. On September 3rd, we had an international layover on our way to Italy for our honeymoon. There were some weather issues which caused our incoming flight from Seattle to circle the airport for a while before we were finally able to land. No problem, I get weather issues. Once we were able to deboard the plane, we had to find the international terminal. The airport had very poor signage for this, so we stopped to ask a staff. He told us the quickest way would be to go to the end of the G gates and take a shuttle to the M International terminal to avoid having to exit the airport and go through security again. Once we got to G17 where the shuttle was, a female airport worker told us she needed to see our boarding passes and passports. We handed them over and she said she couldn't allow us to be shuttled until she confirmed our flight was still there. I told her that my Delta app confirmed that the flight was delayed by 30 minutes. I had also heard an announcement that all flights were delayed from the weather since no planes were able to take off or land. She insisted on checking Google Flights for her update as well as got on her walkie-talkie to ask someone who was in the international wing if our flight was still there. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and we need to board our plane. This person who works at the damn airport would not use the airport computer to check our flight status and continued to rely on Google Flights. She told us that she would not shuttle us over because apparently our flight had left. I told her she was wrong and she refused. I was furious. I grabbed our passports and told my husband, "I don't trust that she is right. I think we still need to make a run for it and go to the international wing by ourselves." We exited the airport, caught the rail train and went through security with 10 minutes to spare. We finally made it to our gate and what do you know, our flight was still there! We were able to board and had about 5 minutes.

✅ Trip Verified | Avoid this airport if at all possible. Horrendous experience both arriving and departing. When we arrived it took over half an hour to get off the plane because information on connecting flights had be posted just outside the exit and caused congestion. We then made our way down to immigration control which was in chaos. There were no proper signs just some people shouting instructions which nobody could understand. We followed people and ended up in the wrong place. After 10 minutes we were then told where we needed to go by somebody we could understand. This was the longest queue I have ever seen, It took us 15 minutes to get to the back of it. When we got near the automatic machines we were stopped for about 15 minutes because the queue after the machines was too long and was clogging up the machine area. When we used the machines our documents were rejected. We later found out that the machines were rejecting 95% of people. This was the basis of the queue. Because of this we had to go in the next queue to be dealt with manually. Altogether it took nearly 3 hours to get through the immigration. Departing was not much better. After checking in, which took about 40 minutes because BA do not have a bag drop option and only 2 desks open for Economy and Premium Economy passengers we were then faced with another huge queue for immigration. It was so long it spilled out onto the check in area. Once through immigration the security check was relatively quick although I had to be body searched because I left a plastic comb in my pocket! It took over 2 hours to get through. One of our worst experiences at a USA airport, although departing from here was also bad a couple of years ago, so a place to avoid.

✅ Trip Verified | Airline travel is not always the easiest thing to do. The more stresses that can be eliminated from it, the better. I think one of the biggest stresses is the time it takes to go through security. O’Hare’s security is efficient and friendly allowing travelers to place their items on the scanning belt at their own pace without holding up the rest of the line. We were able to get in a through security in less than 20 minuets which is fantastic. Great job!