Why did they redesignate the runways at KORD so strangely?

FlightAware General
1

I can’t figure out for the life of me who came up with the brilliant new runway labeling scheme at KORD…

There used to be 9R/27L and 9L/27R of course. Some genius decided it would be a good idea to rename 9R/27L into 10/28, and then name 9L/27R as 9R/27L. So as you approach the airport heading west, looking down the length of these two parallel runways - you have 27Left on the right side, and 28 on the left side, and there’s no 27R at all. Asinine. Are they purposely trying to cause runway runway incursions? Maybe someone can explain to me the reasoning because I don’t understand it.

2

It’s all part of O’Hare’s expansion plans. Explanations can be found here:

http://www.flychicago.com/ohare/runways/plans.pdf

And here:

Existing and New Airfield Configuration

3

See not so,

after all.

But I’ll tell you this, that airport is messed up.