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--- transportation:airports [2025/05/25 20:02] – [EWR - Newark, NJ USA] timb
+++ transportation:airports [2026/06/17 18:53] (current) – [Airports] timb
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 == Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields ==
-© 2002, © 2021 by Paul Freeman. Revised 5/18/21.
+Copyright 2002, Copyright 2021 by Paul Freeman. Revised 5/18/21.
-*** Dedicated in the memory of my father, Harris Freeman (1929-2010), who supported my interest in aviation ever since I was a little boy. ***
+Dedicated in the memory of my father, Harris Freeman (1929-2010), who supported my interest in aviation ever since I was a little boy.
-**“History & mystery combined.”**
+“History & mystery combined.”
 On the following pages, you will find information on vanished or abandoned airfields & their unusual histories.
@@ Line 277: / Line 277: @@
 © 2002, © 2023 by Paul Freeman. Revised 8/29/23.
-*** Dedicated in the memory of my father, Harris Freeman (1929-2010), who supported my interest in aviation ever since I was a little boy. ***
+Dedicated in the memory of my father, Harris Freeman (1929-2010), who supported my interest in aviation ever since I was a little boy.
 “History & mystery combined.”
@@ Line 319: / Line 319: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/best-airports-in-the-world-2024-1851420427
+== Top 10 Longest Airport Runways in the World ==
+While shorter runways test pilots' precision, these elongated strips of tarmac offer the luxury of space, ensuring that even the most massive aircraft can touch down with room to spare for a victory lap!
+Sakshi Jain - June 6, 2025
+In 2024, global passenger numbers reached record levels, pressuring airports to handle growing numbers of travellers and accommodate larger aircraft to transport them. Without suitably long runways, airports can’t welcome the world’s largest passenger or cargo aircraft—or even space shuttles when they feel like dropping by for a visit.
+There are plenty of airports with runways long enough for virtually any aircraft, and not all of them are in locations that enthusiasts might expect. Some have decades of history, while others have been custom-built to fit the needs of today’s aviation industry. These 10 runways are among the longest in the world, with lengths far exceeding most airports—a spotlight on the most interesting ultra-long runways from around the globe.
+https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2025/06/06/top-10-longest-airport-runways-in-the-world/
+== Spending Too Much Time At Airports ==
+Zvi Mowshowitz - Aug 15, 2025
+In honor of Nate Silver’s analysis of when to leave for the airport, and because it’s been an intense week, I thought I’d offer my thoughts on various related questions.
+**Buying The Ticket**
+As far as I can tell, the major booking portals for tickets are all basically the same. I’ve been using Orbitz for a long time because I’m used to the interface, it is clean and I have confidence it works. The times I checked Kayak and so on they all seemed to be exactly the same.
+I still book tickets manually rather than using an AI agent. There isn’t much time to plausibly save and by the time I fully express preferences and enter my information anew I might as well have just done it myself. It also means I look at alternatives, which helps me keep tabs.
+My heuristic is to book a little over two weeks in advance, but not to book much more in advance of that in case plans change or want to change, since in expectation price changes are pretty small and maybe you decide to stay an extra day for some reason even if you are confident you won’t cancel.
+I almost always book the minimum flight, basic economy, whether or not I am paying. There is so little to be gained from moving up compared to the price. What I will pay a substantial amount for are nonstop flights since connections create bad luck surface you don’t want, flights at the right time of day so I don’t lose a bunch of sleep or work for no reason, and avoiding terrible airlines, with only minor preference between the normal options.
+https://thezvi.substack.com/p/spending-too-much-time-at-airports
@@ Line 410: / Line 438: @@
 https://simpleflying.com/2-airports-longest-runways-world/
+== The 50 best airports in America, ranked ==
+What makes an airport special? We analyzed what passengers love most for our own definitive ranking.
+Hannah Sampson, Edward Russell and Andrew Van Dam - June 26, 2025 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
+The airport has become so synonymous with misery that we often grit our teeth and power through it. Headphones in. Shuffle to the gate. Grab a sad sandwich and tune out.
+They are modern marvels of architecture and logistics. But many of us would rather visit the dentist. Easy? Ha. Memorable? Rarely in a good way.
+We wanted to find exceptions. Beyond the gray halls of monotony, there exist airports where you may actually want to stay awhile. So we set out to rank the best in the United States.
+We took our question to readers, soliciting more than 2,300 responses. Because we wanted an answer based on more than vibes, we enlisted Department of Data columnist Andrew Van Dam. To build his airport-ranking algorithm, Van Dam first analyzed reader feedback so he could prioritize what travelers value most.
+We learned travelers adore airports that are easy to get to (and through) above all else. People love light-filled spaces with soaring ceilings. Recent renovations help, too. Van Dam fed your nominations into the algorithm, but he also factored in more than 450,000 Yelp reviews for airport shops, restaurants and the buildings themselves.
+Our list started with more than 450 airports that served at least 1,000 passengers last year. We narrowed it to the top 50, then dug up more data like gate capacity and parking. For more on our process, read the methodology box at the bottom.
+https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/interactive/2025/best-airports-us-ranking/
+== Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields ==
+© 2002, © 2026 by Paul Freeman. Revised 6/13/26.
+*** Dedicated in the memory of my father, Harris Freeman (1929-2010), who supported my interest in aviation ever since I was a little boy. ***
+“History & mystery combined.”
+On the following pages, you will find information on vanished or abandoned airfields & their unusual histories.
+As a pilot, a particular interest of mine has always been the abandoned airfields that dot the landscape of much of this country.
+Both for their potential safety value to a pilot in an emergency, and also for their sometimes fascinating history, this particular topic has always held my curiosity.
+When I'm a passenger on commercial flights, I've always found myself looking out the window, constantly looking for airfields below.
+When I fly as a pilot myself, I've always tried to land at as many airports as possible,
+to learn a little about each one.
+https://airfields-freeman.com/
+===== DFW - Dallas/Ft Worth, TX USA =====
+== Why In The World Does Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Have So Many Runways? ==
+Peter Hanson - 21 August 2025
+Texas has a reputation for everything being bigger, and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) is certainly a 'Texas-size' airport, as are many things in the expansive US state. The airport has seven runways, five terminals, and multiple air traffic control (ATC) towers. In terms of square footage, it is the fourth-largest airport in the world, according to Jagran Josh, with an area of 69.6 square kilometers.
+With this extensive size and multiple runways, the airport is capable of dealing with a large amount of aviation traffic. According to OAG, the airport was the 10th busiest airport in the world during August 2025, serving 4,366,381 seats. Last year, it was even busier, ranking fifth in the same month. This article takes a look at the multiple runways at DFW, along with some of the other facilities there, investigating how and why they are used
+https://simpleflying.com/why-dfw-has-so-many-runways/
@@ Line 459: / Line 545: @@
 https://www.theverge.com/planes/673462/newark-airport-delay-air-traffic-control-tracon-radar
+==  The Newark Airport Crisis is About To Become Everyone's Problem ==
+Posted by msmash on Monday May 26, 2025 12:52PM
+Newark Liberty International Airport has suffered six radar and radio outages in nine months, with the most recent occurring May 9th when controllers told pilots "our scopes just went black again" before handing off flights to other facilities. The outages have forced flight cancellations, diversions, and delays lasting over a week as airlines repositioned aircraft and crews.
+The Federal Aviation Administration created the problem by relocating Newark's air traffic control operations from the understaffed N90 facility on Long Island to Philadelphia in 2024. Only 17 of 33 controllers accepted the move despite $100,000 relocation bonuses, leaving operations short-staffed. Rather than build new STARS servers in Philadelphia, the FAA opted to send radar data over 130 miles of commercial copper telephone lines.
+The remote feeds have experienced approximately 10 minutes of downtime over 10 months -- exceeding the agency's reliability standards and occurring 200 times more frequently than the FAA's internal analysis predicted. The agency simultaneously laid off over 100 maintenance technicians and telecommunications specialists in February, further straining an air traffic control system that suffers around 700 outages weekly nationwide while managing 16.8 million annual flights with 1990s-era technology.
+https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/05/26/1952223/the-newark-airport-crisis-is-about-to-become-everyones-problem
@@ Line 483: / Line 581: @@
 https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/hillsboro-airport-safety-risks-runway/283-e17ed518-3fc9-4d10-af10-a3c4f5c9580e
+===== KCGX - Meigs Field - Chicago, IL US =====
+== Looking Back at the Overnight Destruction of Meigs Field ==
+Chicago’s mayor in 2003 dismantled a historic lakefront airport and paid a ‘pocket change’ fine.
+Meg Godlewski - Monday, March 30, 2026 at 04:52 PM ET
+It takes years to build an airport, at least 30 days to get permission from the FAA to legally shut it down—a situation that’s unlikely as the agency is in the business of protecting aviation—and just a few hours to destroy it. These are lessons learned on March 30,  2003, when the aviation world woke up to learn that Merrill C. Meigs Field (formerly KCGX) in Chicago had been destroyed overnight.
+It wasn’t an act of nature. It was done on order of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who instructed heavy equipment operators to go to the airport under the cover of darkness and carve a series of X-shaped ditches across the 3,900-by-150-foot runway, rendering it useless.
+The airport was built shortly after World War II on Northerly Island, a human-made peninsula minutes from downtown Chicago. In 1952, the airport was named Meigs Field after Merrill C. Meigs, the publisher of the Chicago Herald and Examiner and an aviation enthusiast. The airport’s 75 acres were leased from the Chicago Parks District.
+The airport’s location made it popular with business travelers, medical flights, and recreational pilots. Aviation enthusiasts from outside the Chicago area were introduced to it as the default airport in no fewer than 12 versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
+Daley was not the first Chicago mayor who wanted to close the airport. In the 1980s  Jane Byrne suggested closing it and converting the land into a park. This raised a great outcry among local pilots, aviation advocacy groups, and businesses that appreciated the convenience of an airport so close to downtown.
+In addition, the FAA admonished the city that the airport had received agency grants, and each one carries an assurance that the facility remains open a set amount of time (usually 25 years) so that the grants can be amortized. The city had most recently accepted a grant in 1976, so the soonest the airport could legally close would have been 2001.
+https://www.flyingmag.com/looking-back-at-the-overnight-destruction-of-meigs-field/
@@ Line 537: / Line 661: @@
 https://simpleflying.com/why-this-airport-is-among-the-top-5-worst-in-the-us/airport-top-5-worst-us/
+== Why In The World Does Chicago O'Hare Have So Many Runways? ==
+Alexander Mitchell - 11 June 2025
+One of the most significant operational assets that any airport possesses is its numerous runways, which facilitate aircraft takeoffs and landings. By having more runways, an airport can drastically expand its passenger and aircraft operation capacity. Therefore, runways tend to be key catalysts for the continued growth of a large airport. In the United States, nearly all the largest global gateways have multiple runways, some of which can accommodate simultaneous takeoffs and landings.
+One of the largest and most important airports in the United States is Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD). This facility is not only the principal international airport serving the Chicago metropolitan area, but it is also a major hub for both American Airlines and United Airlines. The airport is a massive global gateway for business travelers. To accommodate the large amount of passenger demand to and from the facility, Chicago O’Hare has eight different runways. Let’s take a deeper look at the airport and its many runways.
+https://simpleflying.com/why-chicago-ohare-so-many-runways/
+== Worth The Wait: Chicago O'Hare Begins Construction On New $1.3 Billion Concourse ==
+Prachi Patel - 27 August 2025
+Chicago O’Hare International Airport has finally broken ground on a long-awaited new concourse. The $1.3 billion expansion, known as Concourse D, marks the airport’s first major terminal construction in years. The project has faced repeated delays since it was first announced in 2018.
+Now, it is slated for completion in 2028. Officials say the new facility will help modernize one of the country’s largest airports, adding capacity and updated passenger amenities as part of the airport's broader redevelopment program.
+The new Concourse D was designed by Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) in collaboration with Ross Barney Architects, Juan Gabriel Moreno Architects, and Arup. It will span 590,000 square feet across three levels and add 19 gates to O’Hare. Most are planned for narrowbody aircraft, though 18 of them can be combined into nine positions for larger widebodies, according to the Office of the Mayor.
+In addition, the concourse will feature more than 20,000 square feet of lounge space, 30,000-square feet of retail and dining, and a 450-square-foot children’s play area. At the north end, it will also have a 40-foot-high atrium featuring an oculus skylight, which is designed to bring natural daylight to all three levels of the concourse. Besides, the new facility will also connect directly to Concourse C through a bridge. Michael McMurray, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation, said:
+<blockquote>
+“By breaking ground in Concourse D, we are taking a critical first step toward enhancing how the airport welcomes and serves more than 80 million passengers each year. We are also proud to introduce ORDNext, a new stage of development in the O’Hare 21 capital program that will elevate the passenger experience, improve connections between domestic and international flights, and increase the airport’s footprint to accommodate future growth.”
+</blockquote>
+https://simpleflying.com/chicago-ohare-construction-new-concourse/