Chicago O'Hare Airport

In transit from Zurich to Minneapolis via ORD. An ordeal. Long waiting lines at Terminal 5 for immigration. Very slow security process in Terminal 1 for my connecting flight. Connecting time was just sufficient to get from plane to plane just in time (almost 3 hours). Lack of efficiency makes ORD a bad place to connect. The only nice thing were the friendly people at immigration and security.

Stopped here with United on my way to Roanoke (ROA) from San Francisco (SFO). This is the one to avoid. When I landed the plane took 20 mins to taxi to the gate because of the terribly organized runways. I came to find that although the terminal (Terminal 1) was clean and had plenty of eateries most were too expensive. After passing that little conglomerate eateries are next to none so it took awhile to find a decently-priced place. Finding a restroom was nightmare. I had to find Terminal 2 which took even longer than the restroom thanks to an appalling lack of signage. Terminal 2 was far too small to hold all the passengers necessary and indirectly because of that it was appallingly dirty. The flight to Roanoke got caught in traffic. There is no next time for this airport I'll use Midway if I have to.

Security (as with any US airport) takes a while and there are usually long lines. Shops and restaurants are very limited (even at T5 the international terminal). Transfer between terminals means that you need to clear immigration and customs and either take the bus or the monorail train which means that you then need to go through TSA security again. Facilities are nothing special and the terminals are generally long and narrow hence no sense of spaciousness.

The airport is large mostly clean with long security lines. But that is all ok. The thing that is not ok is that they charge for WiFi access. They have large signs that proclaim the easy use of WiFi but in fact they charge $10 per day to access. This lack of basic Internet services is enough to prompt me to take my business away from Chicago.

Terminal 2 - check-in and security lines ok but a long and dull wait for your flight if you are not a gold card fidelity member. Restaurants are limited and far too crowded along with the waiting areas.

International T5 arrivals needs more attention arrived from LHR at immigration there were long lines. It is a very hot area so frustrations do start appear with tired passengers. Authorities know what flights are arriving there should be enough people on duty to meet the demand as it is not a great first impression. Transferring between terminals needs to be improved having to leave airside to go to your connecting terminal and then go back through TSA security. I had to line up for over 1hr to go through security so with the hour long wait for immigration & the hour wait to line up and go through security you need at least 3hrs if you are transferring to a domestic flight. O'Hare does need to have an Air Side transfer to reduce lines for security in the terminals otherwise passengers will start to go to other gateway airports.

Chicago T5 for international flights is a poor facility for such a major city. Firstly the long narrow design often means long walks to check in back to security in the centre and back to the gate. Routing to the CTA train is not very well signed yes it gets you to the shuttle tram fairly well but after that getting off the tram at T1 or T2 signs are geared only to passengers flying from that terminal not passengers en route to the CTA city train on the Blue line. Surely not impossible to deal with this likely eventuality. Indeed T5 passengers are probably more likely to use CTA than the domestic arrivals. Security queues outbound at T5 can be really awful it took 1hr last Tuesday for no obvious reason. Some queues moved faster than others the one on the left next to the food court (a very small basic facility) was slowest as it was always used to pass flight crew to the top of the line. Airside there are only tiny shopping facilities no newspapers except from those machines you see on the street a small selection of mass market magazines. Of course if you want food go somewhere else or bring it with you. An extraordinary lack of initiative to ignore selling to passengers with long wait times. There are very few seats at the gates even though more seats could be accommodated. Even less seats if you have to wait groundside. Air conditioning is weak particularly at check in where the sun heats the facility. It is bright and clean however and some of the art work is worth a look.

Warning to O'Hare visitors. There is a group of scam artists that might approach you with a very sad story about being stuck there and needing money to get home for a funeral - sick mother - doctors appointment. This has happened to me three times in the last year. Don't give them any money! If the airport would be as diligent about these people as they are about harmless homeless people O'Hare might be more tolerable!

Arrivals absolutely terrible experience - waiting 2hrs 15 minutes in a hot and stuffy passport control queue. They only had 4 people manning the desks while the non US-Citizen queue was 500 people. Departures - dreadful sign posting when trying to move between the CTA and different terminals. Shopping facilities quite poor in the departure lounge.

For an international airport this has got to be one of the worst for lack of facilities for outgoing passengers. Immigration is great with very friendly & courteous staff who despite the long wait & heat manage to raise a smile with even the most weary passenger. The International terminal needs to update it's catering facilities both landside & airside with only a very small food court landside and a sandwich shop airside selling a few duty free items. Surely someone would have seen $ signs & created more retail outlets on both sides for such a captive market? Perhaps they should take a look at LAX or LHR & see how much money there is to be made in providing customers with better services?