At the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, passengers with spare time can get a massage at the Back Rub Hub, peruse artsy gifts at the Field Museum store or dine on ginger salmon at a Wolfgang Puck outpost. Such options should be a relief to delayed passengers–and at O’Hare there are bound to be plenty of them wandering the terminals.

O’Hare is the nation’s worst airport for delays, according to an analysis of 2007 Bureau of Transportation statistics for 100 of the largest airports. It earns this unenviable title based on delays related to security, late aircraft, the national aviation system, cancellations, carrier problems and weather. We also factored in the percentage of flights with on-time arrival and departures.

In Depth: America’s Top 20 Time-Draining Airports
The Midwestern hub, which transported 30.8 million passengers last year, ranked last in three categories: late aircraft, air traffic control and cancellations. Its best showing was in the percentage of arrivals category–66% of its flights arrive on time, giving it a rank of 92 out of 100 airports. To translate that into time lost, O’Hare flights in 2007 were delayed by a cumulative total of 2.5 million minutes due to a late aircraft.

Chronic delays like these are nothing new, but as the national aviation system struggles under the weight of outdated infrastructure and the airline industry tries to cope with financial turmoil, congestion and delays worsen.

Source:Forbes.com