Scott Kirby’s gambit has failed. United Airlines isn’t going to push American out of Chicago after all. In fact, American Airlines is poised to get back 3 gates at O’Hare airport, based on a new preliminary determination by the city.
- Last year United Airlines gained 5 gates and American Airlines lost 4 gates.
- Each year, the city is supposed to notify airlines about common use and preferential use gate allocations. Those are tied to prior year schedules.
- American began rebuilding its O’Hare operations last year. United said in January that they expected American to be awarded three gates this year as a result.
American Airlines is poised to win back three gates that it lost at O’Hare International Airport, while rival United Airlines is expected to give up three gates in the latest round of reshuffling space at the airport.
…The new allocation of gates, issued March 30, is preliminary and doesn’t factor in Southwest Airlines’ decision to stop serving O’Hare, where it had three gates in Terminal 5, in June. United and American operate in terminals 1, 2 and 3.
American Airlines will regain 3 gates. They bought two gates from Spirit Airlines, which I was first to report. As a result, American should have a net gain of one gate at O’Hare compared to a year ago.
While American has argued persuasively that last year’s reallocation shouldn’t have happened under the Airport Use and Lease Agreement – that the first reallocation shouldn’t occur until at least April 1, 2027, because gate additions were supposed to have been complete and used for a year first – it seems to me that American escapes unharmed, at least as long as the FAA’s flight caps at the airport hold.
American has been able to operate the flights it wants out of the gates that it has, and isn’t being permitted to grow beyond last summer’s levels anyway. That suggests there aren’t really any damages from the early gate re-allocation.
This also suggests that United’s arguments that the FAA should have taken into account gate reallocations in deciding flight caps (allowing United to grow, and forcing American to shrink) is largely wrong because those reallocations are mostly being reversed.
United will still be up one gate from the reallocation, and one gate they acquired from Spirit. So that’s two more gates than before, versus one more for American, sligtly widening their lead at the airport.
American is refreshing its L concourse club at the airport, and has woken up to the importance of the Chicago market for its Citibank credit card partnership.
Unless United is able to overturn the FAA order limiting flights, it looks like their CEO Scott Kirby’s gambit to force American to de-hub O’Hare did not work.
(HT: Enilria)
Bahaha. Suck it Scott.
@Tim Dunn, do tell us, how is this good for Delta?
The story is not over—United will prevail
@trk1 — “Unless United is able to overturn the FAA order limiting flights” …so, how much will United need to ‘bribe’ the grifter-in-chief to get their way here? Surely, a multi-million-dollar ‘donation’ to the presidential library/skyscraper in Miami would suffice.
the way that DL benefits, 1990, is by ORD capacity being capped.
but let’s also be clear how much UA blabbed about pushing AA out.
AA put out very strong guidance for the 2nd quarter as part of its 1st quarter earnings and Wall Street liked it. They, like WN, seem to have turned the corner in generating revenue.
UA has failed to grow or been forced to limit capacity at EWR, ORD and SFO. No other airline has been put under as many growth restrictions as UA.