Once Again, the Airport

A cesspool of corruption, waste and who knows what else?

• Mayor Daley likes to talk about cutting the city payroll to the bone, eliminating waste and inefficiency.

  But you'd never know it by looking at the management flow chart at Chicago's Department of Aviation.

  It includes a dizzying array of 49 boxes, each with a title and lucrative salary. Nearly 60 percent of those managers have salaries that top $100,000.

And we thought the CPD and CFD were "top-heavy" with overpaid managers. The airport operates under a different set of rules though, seeing as how much of the graft and corruption is paid for by the airlines themselves, who subsidize the financial end of things by charging passengers a buck or less in fees. If you spread the money out over the millions of people traveling through O'Hare, you can hide an awful lot of six-figure salaries.

It's a wonder the Outfit hasn't set up shop out at the airports. Oh wait....