April 06--Nearly 77 million passengers made their way through O'Hare International Airport last year, ushering it into fourth place among the world's busiest airports.
Preliminary rankings released this week by Airports Council International, a worldwide association of airports, put O'Hare into the fourth spot globally based on passenger traffic. More than 76.9 million passengers boarded and got off planes at O'Hare in 2015, giving the airport a boost of nearly 10 percent in growth over the prior year.
O'Hare moved up three spots from seventh place to fourth behind Atlanta, Beijing and Dubai.
In its rankings report, Airports Council International cited various infrastructure investments Chicago has made at the airport for the increased traffic.
"After years of congestion, the airport is reaping the benefits of runway expansions and other capacity developments," according to the news release.
City officials in January announced a $1.3 billion plan to build a sixth runway and new taxiways to further increase capacity and cut down on delays.
Atlanta is tops in passengers and number of flights coming in and out of its airport. Chicago is second when considering the number of takeoffs and landings.
Aside from passengers, O'Hare fared better in 2015 compared to the prior year when it came to shipping cargo. O'Hare experienced a 15.6 percent increase in the air cargo it handled, enough to take the 17th spot. Nearly 1.6 million metric tons of cargo was loaded and unloaded at the airport, according to the release.
"With recently expanded air cargo facilities, the airport maintains its status as a major nexus for global trade and a link to the multimodal transfer of goods across the continent," the release said.
Last month, O'Hare slipped out of the rankings entirely of the world's 100 best airports rated by travelers on categories from cleanliness to wait times to food choices.
lvivanco@tribpub.com
