American Airlines and United Airlines continue to battle for supremacy in Chicago. United has been beefing up its presence at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD) at American’s expense. However, American is attempting to fight back by launching new routes directly aimed at United.
This battle shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon, so this could be good news for Chicago based flyers as the two duke it out.
American vs. United in Chicago
American And United have competed in Chicago for decades. The two carriers have had major hub operations at the airport going back to the 1980s and, for the longest time, they were fairly similar in size and reach.
That has changes significantly in recent years with United taking a dominant position in the market, leaving American to play second fiddle. In recent years United has taken on more gates at the airport as it continues to grow, sometimes at the expense of American and others.
Currently United has 97 gates at the airport while American is up to 65 after purchasing two gates from Spirit Airlines as part of the carrier’s bankruptcy proceedings. With United in the lead in gate count, American is getting aggressive on adding flights where they can.
American Adds New Flights on United Dominated Routes
Late last year American added 100 new daily flights from Chicago that are scheduled to begin this spring. The airline has also placed dual cabin aircraft on every route from Chicago thanks to the retirement of its CRJ-200s. The carrier is trying to take a more premium approach in Chicago, which is something United has been crushing them on as of late.
Chicago O’Hare operates on an odd gate allocation strategy where gates are allocated based on historical use, though there is a delay involved. This means that the more you fly now, the more gates you will get access to later.
Partially because of this, American is adding three more routes from Chicago as it continues to try and expand its presence there. The carrier has announced that it will launch year round service from Chicago to Allentown, PA (ABE) and Columbia, SC (CAE) using Embraer E170 regional jet aircraft. The airline is also launching daily, winter seasonal service to Maui (OGG) using a Boeing 787-8.
It’s clear that American is trying to make a move to defend its turf in Chicago but, is this another case of acting too late? Remember, we saw the airline reduce its flying from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and shift the bulk of its transatlantic flying to Philadelphia (PHL). In recent years we’ve seen them shift some of that flying back, but it no longer has the same robust connecting network to fill those flights that it once did.
United is Confident in Its Chicago Strategy
While American is fighting to regain market share, United smells blood in the water. During its year end earnings call, CEO Scott Kirby was asked by a representative of Deutsche Bank about the carrier’s position in Chicago. His response was somewhat surprising as he essentially stated that they would be able to run American out of town.
“I was afraid we were going to get through the call without addressing Chicago. So I’m happy to do it. And it’s probably a good follow-up to the last question that I talked about. And I wanted to start with, at United Airlines, we’ve been a decade-long strategy to build a brand-loyal customer airline. That was all designed to get us out of the commoditized part of the industry where all that mattered was the schedule. And that meant in both — focusing on the product, the technology and service to get customers to choose us.
That’s been a really successful strategy. It didn’t happen overnight. It really has been a decade in the making, but you can see the results, and we’ve had market share increases everywhere that we fly. In Chicago, to be specific, in 2016, American actually had higher local market share with Chicago-based customers and higher share with business customers. In 2025, even after all the growth from our competitor, United now has a 22-point lead with Chicago-based customers in Chicago and a 38-point lead with the brand-loyal business customers.
Being a brand-loyal airline just really inoculates us mostly from that competitive activity. And in fact, in 2025, even with all that growth, the Chicago RASM outperformed the rest of the system by 1%, and we made a $500 million profit. By the way, I think we probably would have made $600 million. So it probably cost us about $100 million. But our competitor lost $500 million even though they didn’t start that really until May, so bigger on a full year basis.
As we enter 2026, there’s another wave of growth coming from that competitor. Mostly that’s going to wind up exactly the same as it did last year, with one difference. In 2025, American added gates. That means we watched it. We could have responded. We chose not to. They’re going to win 3 gates back at our expense when the analysis comes out later this year. We knew that was going to happen. We figured we’d just let it settle into a new normal and that would all be fine.
But in 2026, we’re drawing a line in the sand. We are not going to allow them to win a single gate at our expense in 2026. We’re not trying to win gates, but we’re going to add as many flights as are required to make sure that we keep our gate count the same in Chicago. Look, we’re just going to stay focused. We’ve had the right strategy at the whole network for a decade. We’re going to keep doing it. It’s a winning strategy. It’s working. We’re going to keep doing that in Chicago.
For what it’s worth, I think that we will likely grow our earnings. Certainly, we’ll make at least the same $500 million, I believe. And likely, we’ll still be able to grow our earnings in Chicago for the same reasons it worked last year. American, and we’re pretty good at estimating this is likely to push to about $1 billion in losses in Chicago. But we’re going to just stay focused on the strategy that’s worked for the last decade. Our team is doing a great job taking care of customers and it’s working for us.”
If you skipped all of that I don’t blame you. Essentially, what Kirby is saying is that they’ll make roughly $500 million while growing in Chicago while American will lose up to $1 billion by doing the same.
It’s no secret that American has higher operating costs than United but these numbers seem downright insane. It’s almost like Kirby is assuming the carrier will have to drastically undercut United’s fares in order to grow, leading to significant losses.
The day after Kirby’s comments, American fired back. In a statement the Fort Worth based carrier pushed back on United’s claims, stating:
“While it’s clear that one hub carrier would prefer less competition at O’Hare, the inconsistent, third-party claims regarding our performance in Chicago are unsubstantiated. Over the course of nearly a century, American Airlines has invested billions of dollars in its team, customers, operation and airport infrastructure in Chicago, which includes the addition of nearly 30 new destinations from O’Hare International Airport (ORD) this year alone.
That, coupled with an ongoing comprehensive growth strategy in the market, demonstrates our commitment to Chicago far more than external claims and tactics,” American said. “Two competing hub carriers means ORD is positioned to provide lower fares and more options to travel to, from and through Chicago. That competition is inherently good for the City of Chicago and economic development in the region, as well as for consumers, both in Chicago and beyond, and is a key contributor to O’Hare’s return to the busiest airfield in the nation in 2025.”
Summary
American Airlines and United Airlines are taking their rivalry in Chicago to the next level. American is adding flights in an effort to stave off United’s expansion while United believes it can bleed American dry in Chicago.
While this battle is far from over, passengers in the Windy City will likely see some attractive airfares as this battle rages on.