Flights 'Significantly' Worse For Elmhurst: Official

ELMHURST, IL – An Elmhurst alderman said Monday that the departures from O'Hare are "significantly worse" for the city's northeast corner.

The runway that affects Elmhurst is used more and more for departures, Alderman Michael Bram said at a City Council meeting.

"The departures are significantly worse from a noise perspective and I would guess significantly worse from a pollution perspective because obviously you're gliding when you're arriving and throttling when you are departing," said Bram, whose Ward 3 covers northeast Elmhurst. "The airplanes are supposed to follow the expressway, which they haven't been doing."

Bram was responding to a report from Ward 4 Alderman Mike Baker, the city's representative on the O'Hare Noise Compatibility Commission.

Baker, who attended a commission meeting earlier this month, said O'Hare reported 377 noise complaints from Elmhurst residents in July, coming from seven households. It was the second-lowest number of July complaints since 2019, he said.

The runway that affects Elmhurst was used for 21 percent of all flights in July, up from 16 percent in April. That translates to 232 average departures potentially coming over Elmhurst, Baker said. That calculates to one every six minutes, with greater frequency during the day.

O'Hare and FAA, Baker said, decide which runway to use based on wind and weather.

About 15 percent of flights are between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., with officials expecting a greater number of flights in this category going forward, Baker said.

As for the complaint numbers, Bram advised caution.

"I don't want the public or anyone here on the council to look at those numbers regarding complaints and say, 'Oh, my gosh, there's nobody complaining from town,'" Bram said. "I'm impacted significantly at times. Finding the link, logging in, doing the complaint every time an airplane goes overhead every few minutes isn't going to happen, right? We all have busy lives."