Chicago airport workers are all ready for Thanksgiving holiday travel rush

CHICAGO (CBS) — Ready or not, the Thanksgiving holiday travel season is officially under way, where 1.8 million travelers are expected to fly in and out of both O’Hare and Midway international airports over the next couple of days.

There to guide them all will be the tens of thousands of employees on the frontlines at those airports. And while the anxiety travelers feel when they’re on the go is a common narrative around this time of year, this is the equivalent of the Super Bowl for workers.

That goes whether the workers are braving the elements directing traffic outside the terminal or checking on travelers. They have trained for it all.

At O’Hare, a sense of controlled chaos loomed Tuesday amid the sea of luggage and travelers making a mad dash ahead of the holiday—as the more than 50,000 airport employees at the transit hub who report for duty around the clock made holiday travel possible.

Language barriers are broken down with interpreters. And those who are lucky may even get a smile.

While the official start of the holiday travel season started Tuesday, area airports expect Sunday to be the busiest travel day as many make the trek back home.

Recent trends show Americans have prioritized travel this year, in which airports like O’Hare and Midway have seen record-setting travel numbers similar to pre-COVID times—allowing workers to be prepared.

For United Airlines employees at O’Hare alone, the next few days will be challenging as they will fill 60,000 seats per day. This represents a 16% increase from last year, or 4,400 flights a day.

Doing the math, that amounts to roughly three takeoffs per minute.

“We actually live for this, and we’ve been actually busy all year long, so we are excited about this—and we like to see like the challenge of getting all these customers through our lobby, through security, through the gates, and getting them out,” said United Airlines managing director for customer service Laura Mandile. “We have a sense of pride to make sure that we run a god operation and an on-time operation for our customers.”

CBS News Chicago spoke to a couple of workers at O’Hare, and they had one universal piece of advice they had for those traveling over the next couple of days. Everyone should arrive at the airport early—regardless of whether their flight is on time.

The airport workers say it will make their job easier, and alleviate the anxiety for everyone.