American Airlines will announce new Chicago – Tokyo service on Wednesday along with other routes as part of a pep rally and discussion with the carrier’s employees at O’Hare airport. Aviation watchdog JonNYC reports:
AA at ORD pic.twitter.com/ZqszY3h6sR
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) June 30, 2026
Join us for two can’t-miss moments:
🎉 Big reveal and pep rally
10 a.m. | H/K ConcourseBe the first to hear big news for the hub — revealed live by Robert — before a fun event in the terminal with giveaways, live entertainment, photo ops and more for our team and customers.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) June 30, 2026
American Airlines teased an image to promote a new route. It’s Osaka Garden in Chicago. That almost makes it seem like the plan is to announce Chicago – Osaka but this appears in the hint to just represent ‘Japan’ rather than Osaka specifically, because I’m confident in the sourcing on Tokyo Narita.
JonNYC also says to expect Chicago O’Hare – Ontario, California to be announced.
and then something random like Ontario
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 1, 2026
United Airlines has tried to push American out of its hub at O’Hare, but American pushed back and even won back 3 gates there next year after rebuilding its schedule and buying two gates from Spirit. They’re even investing in a new larger satellite Admirals Club.
Tokyo Skyline
Takashi Ono at Jiro Roppongi
The airline had neglected O’Hare coming out of the pandemic. They were constrained, having retired too many planes, they couldn’t rebuild everywhere. And they’ve been especially constrained on long haul aircraft since they retired their Airbus A330s and Boeing 767s and Boeing faced challenges delivering new Boeing 787s.
American Airlines Boeing 787-8 At Chicago O’Hare
In January American declared Chicago to be an existential fight at their ‘State of the Airline’ for employees and declared United their ‘common enemy.’ It’s certainly a crucial market for spending on their Citibank cobrand credit cards which are the primary driver of profit, and they’ve fallen behind in New York and Los Angeles.
But the airline has been improving markedly, just needing to tie it all together with a premium identity and vision – so getting the CEO out in front of employees like this to sell a vision for the future is crucial.
Chicago O’Hare
The last time that American flew to Asia from Chicago, the flights themselves bled money. Worst were their China flights but that was before the pandemic, China was seen as an important market for the future and they felt the need to ‘squat’ route authorities that would make money later. They may have lost as much as $100 million on that service.
But Asia is now doing much better, in part because there’s so much less China flying (Chinese airlines were flying absurd routes to squat markets themselves, and selling connections throughout Asia cheap to fill the planes). And American has a joint venture with Japan Airlines so they’ll have connecting traffic on both ends of this route.
American Airlines at Chicago O’Hare
Narita Express Train
Chicago – Tokyo has been one of the better flights for award space on Japan Airlines, although not as much recently since Japan Airlines became a points transfer partner with Capital One and Bilt. There’s been far more demand for their awards, and they’ve been much tighter in releasing space. More capacity is welcome!
Here’s hoping YOW is part of the announcement to return to Canadas capital.
HND routes are all taken so HND is only possible if the DOT starts doing some horsetrading which they weren’t willing to do when DL tried to swap some routes.
If AA is starting ORD-NRT, they are likely replacing JL which already flies it.
KIX is possible but that would be a bigger risk than even NRT.
either way, it is good to see AA returning to Chicago-Asia.
it is also worth noting that DL serves 2 cities in Asia from MSP and 3 from DTW; it is hard to believe that UA, the ony US carrier with service from ORD to Asia, only serves Tokyo.
and AA still loses money flying to Asia – and has for 10 years regardless of whether Japan is stronger than it has been in years (the Yen is weak which helps US tourism to Japan). those that don’t think DOT data is telling the truth should tell us where AA can reallocate profits; their domestic profit was only 2X as profitable as their TPAC loss so there isn’t much “flesh” to reallocate to Asia.