Landing at Chicago O'Hare International Airport

What ORD is like

O'Hare serves people changing planes at least as much as people actually visiting Chicago. The domestic buildings connect to each other inside security, while the international one stands apart and is reached by the internal train. Winter here matters to the whole country: when snow settles on Chicago, schedules wobble everywhere else in America. Regulars through this airport learn to keep flight information in their hand rather than on a departure board they have walked away from.

On arrival

Arriving from abroad, switch the line on at landing. Immigration sits in the international building, and after customs anyone continuing on a domestic flight re-checks the bag and takes the internal train to another terminal. That transfer is where people most often lose a connection, so check the departure gate in the airline app while you are on the train rather than waiting for a board. If Chicago is your destination, the city rail platform is underground beneath the central parking structure; follow the signs that way and load your onward route before you take the stairs down.

How far the airport Wi-Fi gets you

O'Hare's Wi-Fi is free after a sign-in page with an advertisement, handed out in sessions like everywhere else in the country. On a bad weather day, when the building fills with people who are not going anywhere, that network carries a load it was never going to carry well and slows to the point of uselessness. Those are precisely the days when everyone needs to rebook a flight and find a room at short notice. The rail platform below the airport has no terminal Wi-Fi either. A mobile line that works on its own is worth most on the worst day.

Getting into town

The blue-line train runs from beneath the airport into central Chicago and operates around the clock, which is rare at an American airport. It takes roughly forty-five minutes and goes underground for the final stretch, where signal drops in and out. If you choose an app-booked car or a taxi, allow plenty of time at rush hour, because the expressway in from the north-west is reliably congested. In winter everything slows at the same time, and the data you actually use goes on flight status, the map, and telling whoever is waiting that your timing has changed again. Keep a transit app rather than guessing at the platform.

What people ask about this airport

• Check the gate on the shuttle — While moving between terminals for a connection, read the gate in the app instead of hunting for a board.
• The train runs late — The city line runs through the night, so it still works when your flight lands hours late.
• Snow spreads outward — When the weather turns here, connections elsewhere unravel too, so keep airline notifications switched on.