In the summer of 2001, as delays and congestion at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport crippled our national aviation system, senators from states such as West Virginia, Iowa and even Arizona came to Chicago with one message: fix O’Hare or we will fix it for you.
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This message resonated with Gov. George Ryan and Mayor Richard M. Daley, who used their vision and leadership to reach an unprecedented agreement to modernize O’Hare and solve Chicago’s capacity crisis. The agreement is rooted in two core principles: consumer benefits and economic benefits.
Ryan and Daley’s brave and bold leadership will create a world-class and highly functioning all-weather airport that will stimulate the city, state and regional economies and create critical new jobs in the region. O’Hare is one of the nation’s most critical airports and serves as a domestic and international hub for United Airlines.
O’Hare is the heart and soul of our global network. As a result, we are fully supportive of this agreement and a proud advocate of O’Hare modernization.
Now that Ryan and Daley have ended the political gridlock and answered the call of Congress, it is time for the U.S. Congress to do its part by codifying the agreement into federal law. The governor and the mayor understand the consumer mandate for a safe, efficient and highly functioning O’Hare and the business community’s mandate to restore O’Hare’s status as a pre-eminent transportation hub that will attract global commerce.
Congress has the opportunity to take historic action here. The Chicago Delay Task Force identified the critical need for new runways at O’Hare in its 1991 report. Finally, in 2002, with the historic agreement between the governor and mayor, this critical need can be addressed.
The Ryan-Daley plan is a win-win for everyone: It will bring 200,000 new jobs to the region, increase annual economic benefits by an estimated $16 billion to $20 billion, reconfigure O’Hare’s existing runways, add much-needed new capacity, keep Meigs Field open and provide for construction of a new airport in Peotone.
The agreement has earned the enthusiastic support of the business community, labor groups and the traveling public. Unfortunately a few political obstructionists still exist and we just cannot understand the rancor they have for this project. That said, we are at a point where we cannot allow this national consumer issue to be derailed one day longer by a vocal few political obstructionists.
On behalf of United Airlines’ 84,000 employees and the 75 million passengers we fly annually, I call on Congress to seize the historic opportunity to modernize O’Hare International Airport–the heart and soul of our national aviation system.