United Airlines may be about to start losing a ton of money at Chicago O’Hare, doing ‘strategic flying’ that doesn’t make sense based on what passengers are looking to fly (and pay for).
- They want to grow their market share in Chicago, which will help them keep their massive portfolio of gates and avoid letting American Airlines take any back that they lost last year.
- And they’re willing depress profits to foist losses on American Airlines as well, hoping that American will abandon its fight for relevance in the city leaving United to rake in profits in the future.
To do this, United will offer its largest schedule in Chicago ever this summer. They will serve 222 total destinations (175 domestic, 47 international). Meanwhile, American is targeting “more than 180 destinations.” I get to 183.
United will reach up to 750 flights per day from Chicago this summer. That’s about 25% more than they were flying in 2019 (pre-pandemic). Meanwhile, American is only back to roughly pre-pandemic levels of just over 500 flights per day.
Last week United’s CFO admitted that profits had already fallen at O’Hare but claimed to still be making money. That’s before the huge build up in flights even starts.
Enilria points out that leaked internal slides from United shared by JonNYC show what kind of an effect on profit the fight is already having on United’s financial performance.
Stop stop he’s already dead pic.twitter.com/20i9gpptkb
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 19, 2026
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 19, 2026
Here’s what Enilria notes:
United intended to show American doing worse than they do at ORD, but it also shows (with a little math) that United is also going backwards at Chicago ORD and you can bet it will get a lot worse when the capacity apocalypse hits this Summer.
United’s revenue per available seat mile is down 8.1% at O’Hare since 2022 vs 2.9% elsewhere. So performance of their Chicago flights “has fallen 2.74x mroe than everything else.”
United’s strategy is simple, a variation on classic ‘dumping’ in anti-trust. But it often doesn’t work!
- United believes they can sustain losses in Chicago, and that American – which isn’t profitable today – can’t.
- They believe Wall Street will force American to back off from Chicago. The truth is that Chicago will be long-term profitable for American if they are competitive there, because it’s arguably the second most important credit card market in the country. United keeps pushing the narrative that American is burning cash on flights but their actual profit comes from the cobrand credit card.
- If American backs off, they’ll lose gates. United will gain gates. They’ll gain an enduring advantage and a moat in Chicago. Thus they’ll be able to raise airfares and also gain credit card market share.
Among the flights United has announced, just since fall:
| Destination | # of daily frequencies | Aircraft |
| Paducah, KY (PAH) | 1.0 | CRJ-550 |
| Santa Barbara, CA (SBA) | 1.0 | 737 MAX |
| Lynchburg, VA (LYH) | 1.0 | CRJ-200 |
| Eugene, OR (EUG) | 1.0 | 737 MAX |
| Rochester, MN (RST) | 3.0 | CRJ-550 |
| Wausau, WI (CWA) | 3.0 | CRJ-550 |
| Marquette, MI (MQT) | 3.0 | CRJ-550 |
| Monterey, CA (MRY) | 1/7 | 737 MAX |
| St. George, UT (SGU) | 1/7 | E175 |
| Idaho Falls, ID (IDA) | 1/7 | E175 |
| Clarksburg, WV (CKB) | 1.0 (starts 3/7, then daily) | CRJ-200 |
| Kearney, NE (EAR) | 1.0 | CRJ-200 |
| Erie, PA (ERI) | 3.0 (summer) | CRJ-550 |
| Bristol/Tri-Cities, TN (TRI) | 3.0 (summer) | CRJ-550 |
| Lincoln, NE (LNK) | +1.0 (incremental; total 5.0) | CRJ-550 |
| Champaign/Urbana, IL (CMI) | 4.0 | CRJ-200 / CRJ-550 |
| Kalamazoo, MI (AZO) | 4.0 | CRJ-200 / CRJ-550 |
| Lansing, MI (LAN) | 4.0 | CRJ-200 / CRJ-550 |
| La Crosse, WI (LSE) | 4.0 | CRJ-200 / CRJ-550 |
| Bloomington/Normal, IL (BMI) | 4.0 | CRJ-200 / CRJ-550 |
| Guadalajara, MX (GDL) | 1.0 (limited-time) | 737 |
Most of the growth in Chicago isn’t actually new cities, it’s additional frequencies on existing routes.
Given the importance to American of Chicago in the long-term, Enirlia argues that they can’t walk away from Chicago – they’d be better off filing bankruptcy, emerging leaner, and undercutting United.
That’s probably true. But incentives of managers of a public company are often too short-term to take that approach. They want to keep their jobs, and pressure could keep them from this long-term view. That’s what Scott Kirby is banking on. If he’s wrong, though, he’s going to burn a lot of money in Chicago but won’t actually get anything for it.
Stick with miles, points & FF business travel. Classic spurious correlations.
What does it really mean? Delays to the gate. Delays to the runway. And for UA passengers not having a gate once you land.
Is there no effect on Southwest? While United is hubed at O’Hare, Southwest operates a large hub at Chicago’s midway. I understand that Southwest would typically compete on domestic flights with both American and United in Chicago.
Has Southwest pulled back capacity in Chicago? How is it affecting their yields? I don’t understand why Southwest is consistently left out of this competition.
It’s interesting that United is flying to Champaign from Chicago. When my daughter was going to college there, United had recently stopped flying there, and American stopped there on a flight from Chicago to DFW (and not in the other direction). The only reasonable choice was a bus service from O’Hare to Champaign. That United is flying 4x from ORD doesn’t seem particularly profitable, unless the bus stopped.
It’s insane that United is offering 4/d ORD-CMI, as compared to AA’s existing 2 or 3 flights per day, as well as nearby BMI.
Perhaps their accountants feel they can hide the losses because the flights are flown by Regionals
American needs stronger leadership to compete against United. Time to fire Isom give Nat Piper a chance to turn American Airlines around.
The beauty of capitalism. For once, the customers win
So if AA “de-hubs”, United in Chicago will be like they are in Houston with dominance at the main airport and Southwest having a competitive presence at the city’s secondary airport.
This is exactly the situation American Airlines is in Dallas with Southwest at DAL.
As the new gates that are under construction come online, AA will gradually shrink in ORD and stop wasting money flying all those RJ’s with 65 seats and two flight attendants to DAY. As they do, and UA takes delivery of more, larger planes and bumps their MAX 8’s and 737-800’s down, those short haul rust belt cities will return to where they were before 9/11 with fewer flights served by larger planes, except that there will only be one airline to ORD.
And that’ll be fine. The Daytons of the world won’t have AA AND UA battling for the local Chicago traffic, but they will still have AA to DFW and CLT and PHL and NYC so customers will be fine for both fares and schedule options.
Fares may be higher on some local segment to ORD, but that’s as it should be. If AA “de-hubs”, it’s because the market can’t support two carriers, just like when Delta “de-hubbed” DFW.