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New Chicago Airport Hypotheticals

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JNDVirtual

New Chicago Airport Hypotheticals

Post by JNDVirtual »

NOTE: While the South Suburban Airport is a real entity that is under discussion and planning by the Illinois Department of Transportation, any other information found in this thread should be assumed to be a part of a fictional discussion of implementation of the airport in Flight Simulator X unless otherwise indicated.

I'm in my building mode again, and I'm more interested in building future airports and trying to simulate some future developments in aviation. As such, I found the master plan for the South Suburban Airport in Peotone, Illinois, that is meant to be the primary reliever airport in the Chicago metro area. The initial build is to have a 9,500-foot primary runway, a 5,000-foot general aviation runway (which currently exists at Bult Field [C56]), four passenger gates, and one small air cargo building. The master plan has a future build that could see as many as six runways of at least 10,000 feet each built for projected increases in traffic to Chicago as well as the airport absorbing some primary traffic from both O'Hare and Midway. It is this iteration of the airfield that I am building, though with four runways instead of six (two departure runways and two arrival runways).

As such, I'm coming up with hypotheticals that could play out to see how the traffic flow will look at the new airport. I just need some extra eyes to see if I'm just slap crazy with some of these assumptions and theories and to learn of new ones that I could use. With that said, here we go with what I have already built into the airfield:

- There are two presidents from the state of Illinois, and since there is already an airport named after Abraham Lincoln in the state capital, I named the new airport after President Obama. I dunno if BHO will ring as much as JFK does in New York, but the ICAO KBHO is not in use. However, BHO is the IATA code for Bhopal Airport in India, so I chose not to use it.

- As such, I decided to give the airport a code that is an ode to both Chicago and Flight Simulator: KCGX. Yup, the spirit of Meigs Field will live on with this project. That may screw up FS9 since I think Meigs still exists there, but I'm building this airport for FSX, where Meigs is not represented in the default version since it was closed by the time FSX was released.

- I assumed that political pressure from the residents finally caused the city to close Midway, and I moved all Midway traffic to the new airport. That means I had to obviously go past the four initial gates for the new airport. At Midway, this is the gate breakout: 28 for Southwest (including AirTran gates), four for Delta, and one each for Frontier, Porter, Sun Country, and Volaris.

- I assumed that the new airport may attract low-cost carriers who decide to leave O'Hare to United and American. As such, I moved the operations of the following airlines from O'Hare to Obama: Alaska (one gate), Air Choice One (unknown), Delta (2), Frontier (2), JetBlue (1), Spirit (3), Virgin America (1), and WestJet (1). With all of those operations, that puts 47 known gates at KCGX. I did not move the Delta Shuttle operations from O'Hare but may do so later.

- Because I moved Delta ops to KCGX, I also moved all SkyTeam operators to the new airport. That adds gates for Aeromexico, Air France, Alitalia, KLM, and Korean Air. I allocated one gate for Aeromexico and three heavy gates for the internationals since some of the service is seasonal and may or may not reflect in whichever flightplans a person uses. That also means that cargo operations from Air France China Airlines, China Cargo, China Southern, and Korean Air also were moved to the new airport.

- Because I moved Virgin America operations to KCGX, I also moved Virgin Atlantic operations from O'Hare to the new airport.

- I moved Emirates passenger and cargo operations from O'Hare just to have a Middle Eastern airline represented at the new airport.

- I moved cargo operations from AeroUnion, Nippon Cargo, UPS, and World Airways to the new airport (yes, I know that IRL, World shut down all operations under that brand). I left FedEx at O'Hare.

- Just because I like the livery, I resurrected Hooters Air as a charter airline but using its last schedule from 2006. I moved operations from Rockford to the new airport. For the sake of throwing a bone to traffic, I kept Hooters Air operations at Gary.

So right now, that's what I have flying into KCGX. I'm testing the traffic (Southwest generated a lot of go-rounds until I got the two arrival runways working; they still make up a lot of the go-rounds but they've been cut down quite a bit) and the setup (each runway has its own tower frequency as well). I added a general aviation ramp to replace Bult Field (which in real life will eventually be torn down once the airport upgrades to the second major runway), so there's 18 gates and four large GA gates for those using the Ultimate GA packages from World of AI, and all Midway operations from those packs were moved to the new airport. I used Denver's cargo ramp to build the future cargo ramp at the new airport. Here are some things I'm thinking of adding (and here's where I really really need your opinions, though I don't mind comments for the stuff I already have there):

- There is a future cargo area along the north runway area. Perhaps I can add a military ramp there (had to tie it into MAIW somehow! LOL). The 1993 Base Realignment and Closure round resulted in the closure of the O'Hare Air Reserve Station and the inactivation of the Air Force Reserve's 928th Airlift Wing in 1999. The unit's C-130s were dispersed elsewhere. The Illinois Air National Guard's 126th Air Refueling Wing and its KC-135s were relocated across the state to Scott Air Force Base. With the Air Force's new KC-46 Pegasus coming online, perhaps I can give the airfield a military mission by moving the 126th back to Chicagoland (the Air Force is still shaking out where the KC-46s will be based, with a training unit at Altus Air Force Base, active-duty units at McConnell Air Force Base, and the Vermont Air National Guard the only units currently selected to operate the aircraft).

- Delta is the only one of the remaining Big Three legacy airlines to not have a large presence in Chicago. Chicago is located 333 miles from the Delta hub in Minneapolis and 234 miles from the Delta hub in Detroit. Though some would say that the closer hub would be the one to close first, Minneapolis is seen more as a Northwest legacy hub, and Detroit has more international flights and a larger area for O&D traffic than KMSP. Should I build a new terminal at the new airport and move Minneapolis mainline (or all Delta traffic, including Delta Connection) operations to the new airport?

- If I don't move Delta from one of its two Midwest hubs, should I move one of the two legacies already at O'Hare? If I move United or American to the new airport, its alliance airlines (Star Alliance and oneworld, respectively) would also move. At the same time, is it realistic for one of those airlines to move out considering how much traffic they already have there? It sure would reduce delays into O'Hare, but it could also be viewed that me moving the other airlines out would allow United and American to expand their operations into O'Hare. Moving one of those airlines also would add buildings to the new airport; perhaps a midfield maintenance facility would be constructed to reduce the empty space between the runways. The airfield would basically have Southwest operating with one set of runways and Delta or an O'Hare legacy (and its associate alliance airlines) operating on the other side.

- Should I move Allegiant operations from Rockford into the new airport? Is Rockford far enough away from Chicago (roughly 70 miles) for Allegiant to consider a move?

- Are there other scenarios that you could envision if the airport is built? Would Midway become a general aviation airport to compete with Chicago Executive? Would it become slot-limited like Dallas Love or Reagan National? Would the city just close it outright and allow the property to be developed for a non-aviation purpose?

What say you?
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Future third Chicago airport (four-runway layout)
Future third Chicago airport (four-runway layout)
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