O'Hare closed 2025 with 84.86 million passengers — past its own 2019 peak — and more takeoffs and landings than any airport on earth, while the ORDNext program builds toward a Global Terminal that will replace Terminal 2 by 2033 and grow gate capacity by a quarter.
The dual-hub duel between United and American pushed O'Hare to its best year ever: 84.86 million passengers in 2025, up 6%, with July setting an all-time monthly record of 8.26 million — the busiest month in the airport's 70-year history — and a TSA screening record of 117,871 passengers the day after Lollapalooza. Nearly 50 airlines connect ORD to more than 200 destinations; London is the top international route at over a million passengers a year.
By movements the airport is simply first: 857,392 takeoffs and landings in 2025 — ahead of Atlanta and Dallas — with cargo at 2.13 million tonnes, first in the country by value. The growth came so fast that the FAA capped operations at 2,708 per day through October 2027 to protect the runway and terminal systems. Midway, the city's second airport, carried 19.4 million.
The rebuild matches the traffic. Terminal 5's expansion — the first major piece of O'Hare 21 — opened in 2023 with new international gates. Now construction is sequencing toward the center: Concourse D (Satellite 1) adds 19 gates by late 2028, Concourse E follows with 14 gates ahead of the main event, and the Studio Gang-designed Global Terminal replaces Terminal 2 by 2033 as the nation's first alliance-centric terminal.
When the program lands — publicly projected around $12 billion — O'Hare gains roughly 25% more gate capacity, a second customs checkpoint and a tunnel-and-people-mover spine linking the satellites. For travelers the advice is boring and real: the airport works throughout, but confirm your terminal, leave buffer on connections, and expect changing pedestrian routes around the construction core for years.
Our read: O'Hare in 2026 is a better airport than its reputation and a worse one than its drawings. The Blue Line is still the smart way in — 40 minutes, $5, running all night — and T5's new gates have quietly fixed the international experience. Book connections with 20 extra minutes while the core is rebuilt, and if you're choosing hubs for a long-haul connection, ORD's dual-hub competition now means frequency and fares the coasts can't match.
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