How does getting to and through O'Hare, the world's second busiest airport, stack up against hopping over to Detroit on Northwest/Delta and connecting there?
I've been using Detroit for more than a decade. But the folks who arrange most of my trips to the U.S. have routed me through Chicago twice in as many months. I suspect price has something to do with it; United has been heavily advertising introductory specials involving the new route.
Chicago is farther from London than Detroit, but flying time isn't that much longer because United's small jet is faster than Northwest/Delta's turboprop. As to frequency, United does two flights a day each way, Northwest/Delta three.
My departures to Chicago were at 6:40 a.m. The Windy City is on Central Time, an hour earlier, so it was only 7:15 a.m. when we landed.
Both times it looked as though ours was the only international flight to have arrived, so immigration and customs took minutes. The same is true if you take Northwest/Delta's early-morning flight from London to Detroit.
The major difference occurs with security.
In Detroit, security for international arrivals is in the same building as customs and immigration.
So if there's only a handful of people on your flight, it'll be the same handful going through security.
In Chicago, you do the immigration/customs drill in Terminal 5, then have to walk or take a train to your connecting-flight terminal and clear security there.
First time through, a Sunday in mid-October, I stood in line in Terminal 1 for 40 minutes. By the time I reached the gate for my next flight, most of my two-hour connection time had evaporated.
Second time, a Monday last month, my connecting flight was leaving from Terminal 3, and there was no lineup there. Still, I wouldn't be comfortable making an outbound trip through Chicago unless I had at least two hours between flights.
In Detroit, I'd have no qualms about a tighter connection.
Detroit's airport is easier to navigate than Chicago's. It's newer, smaller and has a much lower volume of passengers -- 35 million in 2008 against O'Hare's 69 million.
The terminals Detroit-London passengers leave from -- B or C -- are small and far less congested than O'Hare's Terminal 2, which Chicago-London passengers use.
But Terminal 2, I found, has a few pluses, including a duty-free kiosk on one side of the departure area for flights to London and a Quizno's fast food outlet on the other.
Best of all, there's a Traveler's Aid desk nearby, staffed by volunteers. I went there when I had trouble finding a pay phone.
My flight was delayed, I explained, and I wanted to call my wife, who was picking me up at London airport.
Instead of giving me directions, the nice lady reached under the counter, brought out a phone and told me to help myself.
"Compliments of the mayor,'' she said.
Airport update
Lineups for security at London airport lengthened when the number of early-morning departures increased. There are now four between 6 and 7 a.m. and two more before 7:30 a.m.
In fact, a United agent advised me last month to go through security no later than 6 for a 6:40 a.m. departure, saying they'd recently had to deny boarding to a couple of passengers who'd arrived late.
Lineups should be shorter now that two changes have been made.
Extra tables have been set up at both ends of the conveyor belt on which passengers place their belongings, and a third security line installed.
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