Unfortunately, and given our past history under the RLA, it is.

Having flown for a major 121 carrier that did not have "downtown" layovers, I'll take the occasional inconvenience to keep the other decent layovers. Staying at the airport on every layover gets old real fast.

All that said, we were all surveyed a while back in preperation for contract negotiations. If folks didn't complain about this issue in numbers back then, it's probably not at the forefront for the next contract.

There's always room for improvement, but we need to keep abreast of the big picture and the likely unintended consequences of quick solutions.

And besides, ORD is already a "14-Hour Rule Exemption" layover.