During last week’s trip to St. Charles, a colleague quizzed me on my choice of flying into Chicago Midway as opposed to O’Hare. Most of my coworkers prefer to fly O’Hare. My answer was that I’ve found it quicker to get a rental car at Midway Airport than O’Hare, where a bus trip is inevitable.

But there’s a bigger reason that I was reminded of when my colleague was late arriving to St. Charles this morning: taxiing time. It takes forever to taxi around O’Hare airport. My colleague’s plane got delayed because of other planes stacked up on the ground. During last year’s flight to Chicago from Milwaukee, my plane spent as much time on the ground at O’Hare as it did in the air getting there!

Chicago Midway is a much smaller airport. That translates into less time wasted on the ground, which in turn makes traveling so much more efficient.