‘American has little choice but to fight this fight’: The battle with United for Chicago
The Windy City is one of the premier battlegrounds for aviation in the U.S. It’s a popular hub for travelers connecting both to the east and west, and was recently named the No. 1 city for business travel, which airlines rely on to generate premium revenue. In fact, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines is the dominant carrier at Midway International Airport.
For these reasons and a few others, it’s also why American Airlines and United Airlines have found themselves locked in the aviation world’s equivalent of a cage match to dominate Chicago O’Hare International Airport — sparking a nasty turf war that’s riveted the industry.
The knock-down, drag-out war between the longtime rivals seems to have no bounds, with the weapons of choice including dueling press releases, a lawsuit over gate space, and taunting highway billboards.
Fort Worth, Texas-based American, the leading U.S. airline by number of flights, and Chicago’s hometown airline United are going head-to-head by pouring hundreds of flights into the O’Hare hub, in addition to investing in other areas in attempts to win over potential customers.
For American, the outcome of the battle could have a ripple effect on its entire business. The carrier is significantly lagging rivals United and Delta in earnings and is racing to close a gap in premium product offerings.
“When it comes to Chicago, we would expect that it returns to the average profitability of our hub network,” American’s CEO Robert Isom told analysts during last month’s earnings call. “It’s going to be our third-largest hub, and we’re going to keep taking care of our customers and making sure that it performs as best as it possibly can.”
This month, United and American will offer 3.5 million seats and 2.6 million seats, respectively. Combining for more than 53,000 flights, the two global airlines will account for about 85% of the market share at O’Hare this month, according to data from Diio by Cirium, an aviation analytics company.
American, which has made efforts to restore its hub at O’Hare to pre-pandemic levels, is set to utilize its dual-class regional jets to expand service to smaller markets like Allentown, Pennsylvania and Columbia, South Carolina. It also announced service to vacation spots like Kahului, Hawaii, aboard wide-body Boeing 787-800 aircraft, which feature its premium business class product, it hopes will lead to better profit margins.
“Being the biggest isn’t necessarily by definition the best, or American can’t be successful if we don’t have equal share,” Nat Pieper, American’s chief commercial officer, told The Dallas Morning News in an interview.
Pieper predicted American’s loyalty program and a burgeoning network for Chicago customers was “gonna drive some business back our way.”
“We’ve never really been the dominant player in Chicago, like we are in Dallas, but we’ve been successful there. That’s our midwestern anchor and I think we’re gonna do just fine there.”
‘Incredibly important market’
O’Hare by one measure reigns as the busiest airfield in the U.S. and by another is the third-busiest airport in the world last year behind Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson and DFW Airport, according to recently released data from OAG. O’Hare is also undergoing one of the largest capital improvement projects in its history as city officials race to keep up with the ever-growing capacity.
Being the dominant carrier at the hub based on seats, United is reluctant to relinquish any more market share in its hometown arena.
“Chicago is an incredibly important market, and it’s also a special place for United, because it’s our headquarters, our hometown,” said Mark Weithofer, United’s managing director of domestic planning.
“We have 18,000 employees here and their families. It’s the third-largest overall in the country for air travel, just behind New York City and Los Angeles. It’s the second-largest in corporate travel for road warriors.”
American also has another connection to the city: For all intents and purposes, Chicago was the airline’s birthplace.
In 1926, aviation icon Charles Lindbergh flew a Robertson mail carrier from the city to St. Louis. Robertson was a small carrier that merged into what became American Airways, the direct predecessor to the modern-day American Airlines.
Ten years later, American became the first airline to fly the Douglas DC-3 aircraft between New York and Chicago, establishing it as a hub early in its history.
But United has been in Chicago for nearly as long and is headquartered in the iconic Willis Tower. The airline’s history traces back to the 1920s, when United Aircraft Transport Corporation acquired four smaller carriers, including Boeing Air Transport (now Boeing) and established United Airlines Inc. in Chicago.
In the late 1930s, United built its headquarters next to Midway Airport, where it also had flights at the time, before shifting its home base to O’Hare in the 1960s, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago.
“We’re the only airport in the world with two hub carriers,” Michael McMurray, Chicago’s commissioner of the Department of Aviation (CDA), told The News in an interview.
“They’re investing in O’Hare and we’re very excited about that. I think that’s a testament to the strength of Chicago and the Chicago market itself. Both airlines … they both see the unique nature of our market here in Chicago.”
“It’s the geographic central location … so it’s easy to connect east-west traffic. We have a large population base, which is good for generating the original (origin and destination) market,” McMurray explained.
“We’re not just a one industry town, and that’s good for generating business travel opportunities. And then finally, this very strong tourism and convention market. So I think both airlines take a look at that and, and that’s what’s driving a lot of the competition here.”
An ‘existential battle’
For American, the pressure to execute on its Chicago strategy is mounting.
The airline needs to squeeze more profits out of its operations, and the money it makes is dwarfed by rivals like United and Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines. For the 2025 fourth-quarter earnings period, American reported a net income of $99 million. That figure pales in comparison to United and Delta, which reported profits of $1 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively.
Meanwhile, Isom is facing growing pressure from the unions representing the airline’s pilots and flight attendants. The board of directors for the flight attendants’ union unanimously voted no confidence in Isom’s leadership.
And the airline will have to improve on its Chicago reliability. From January to October 2025, American scored 72.27% in on-time arrivals in comparison with United’s 76.36%, according to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation.
But analysts haven’t thrown in the towel on the nearly 100-year-old carrier, even as United CEO Scott Kirby has made clear his desire to crush his former employer by pushing it out of Chicago.
“American has little choice but to fight this fight,” said Bill Swelbar, aviation industry analyst for Swelbar-Zhong Consultancy.
“It also has a long history in Chicago and has a number of loyal customers there. But airlines are being judged on more than price today. It is a product on the airplane and in the airport as well as the ancillary benefits one airline offers versus a competitor,” the analyst explained.
“Whereas Chicago is the epicenter, the battle is also being fought at the many airports where each airline is adding service. Networks are complicated webs,” Swelbar added.
“For American to chip away, it will need to deliver above customer expectations for some time and be willing to lose money in its defense of Chicago in the shorter-term. It can be done, but the financial and product advantage United has will be hard to overcome.”
Henry Harteveldt, founder of Atmosphere Research Group, said that while American has been complacent “far too long at O’Hare,” it can still compete at the airport.
“The battle in Chicago, in a way, is an almost existential battle between American and United. American needs to fight back,” said Harteveldt.
“The people of Chicago deserve strong competition; they will benefit from it. If the airline executes well, the employees will benefit from it. But American cannot be complacent, complacency is the biggest threat to any business.”
Tale of the tape
In the three-plus months since Isom declared “there aren’t going to be any impediments” to building out the carrier’s O’Hare network, the airline has put its money where its mouth is.
After purchasing two gates from budget carrier Spirit Airlines, American announced it was adding 100 daily flights to more than 75 destinations to its Chicago spring schedule, pushing up its timeline to build its hub back to 500 daily departures.
Along with its schedule build-up, American is investing in its product offerings at O’Hare. The airline has three Admirals Club lounges and a Flagship Lounge for its premium-paying customers. It also announced this week it was constructing a new 10,000-square-foot Admirals Club lounge.
O’Hare was also the first airport in American’s network to get new self-service kiosks and a reconfigured lobby to streamline passenger check-ins, as well as the first airport where the carrier’s new Boeing 787-9 premium aircraft was deployed.
And the carrier’s product is taking hold, according to Pieper, who said American is “up 20% in terms of local travelers, we’re up 20% of local business travelers, we’re up 20% in AAdvantage enrollments and we’re up 20% in American co-branded credit card acquisitions.”
Also, the product investments will be key as the airline drastically ramps up its schedule. This coming March, American will operate more than 29,000 flights from O’Hare, a 33% increase in comparison to March 2025, according to data from Diio by Cirium.
“We just saw the opportunity available and decided … let’s just keep the ramp-up going,” said American vice chair and chief strategy officer Steve Johnson.
A gate allocation program was at the center of a lawsuit that American brought against United and the city of Chicago in 2025. The program is outlined in a “use it or lose it” provision in a lease agreement that American, along with United, signed with the city, The Chicago Tribune previously reported.
The agreement stipulates that gates at the airport are reallocated based on a carrier’s flying frequency the year prior.
“The more flying you do, the better opportunity you have in that gate reallocation program. By moving forward, (it) gave us some opportunity to compete better for more gates in 2027,” Johnson stated.
American announced in a press release last month that it had sent a letter to the Chicago Department of Aviation to start the review process for the next gate allocation.
“The airline’s move today triggers the start of the CDA’s official redetermination process to determine the next gate reallocation that will take effect in October 2026,” the release said.
After winning the new gates, United announced 10 new routes from O’Hare to destinations in California, Oregon, Utah, and more. The carrier also announced new routes to markets in the upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest.
And the battle didn’t stop there. United CEO Scott Kirby swore that American wouldn’t “win a single gate at our expense” last month and United responded to American’s 100 new flights by announcing plans to reach 750 departures this summer from O’Hare, its largest schedule ever at the airport.
The airline also purchased two gates from Spirit Airlines to bolster its continued growth, according to an internal memo shared with The News.
“10 years ago, we were behind American. Now we have the highest ... market share in 25 years,” Weithofer said. “We have a 20-point gap between No. 2. 10 years ago, that was a four-point deficit, so we’ve swung almost 25 points. One of the other things that really shows that the plan United is doing is working is corporate travel.
“So road warriors, we have a 2.5 to one advantage over the No. 2 airline in Chicago on corporate travel.”
While United would likely balk at any airline attempting to poach market share at its hometown hub, this battle could be partly fueled by the history between Isom and Kirby.
Both leaders have a lengthy history and share key biographical elements in common. Isom and Kirby were colleagues at America West and US Airways under former CEO Doug Parker, before a merger between US Airways and American brought them to North Texas.
The latest financials in Chicago appear to back United’s bold statements. Last week, Deutsche Bank estimated in a research note that United generates about $10 billion of annual revenue in Chicago, while estimating that American generates just over $5 billion.
The note also cited that United earned $500 million of profit from its Chicago operation in 2025, while estimating that American lost money.
While United would likely balk at any airline attempting to poach market share at its hometown hub, this battle could be partly fueled by the history between Isom and Kirby.
Both leaders have a lengthy history and share key biographical elements in common. Isom and Kirby were colleagues at America West and US Airways under former CEO Doug Parker, before a merger between US Airways and American brought them to North Texas.
The premium factor
And for American to address the profitability gap in Chicago, it will have to address a gap in customer offerings in comparison to its rival.
“We know we have to earn the business of the customer every day and there are options for them if we don’t,” said Weithofer.
“That’s what you’ve seen in our investment in our fleet, we’re getting over 100 new airplanes this year with state-of-the-art amenities. That’s how United is going to succeed, we are going to win the hearts and minds of our customers.”
Deutsche’s note said that United will offer 45% more premium seats, serve 20% more destinations overall, and 50% more international destinations this summer.
United also has six lounges at O’Hare, including its premium Polaris lounge.
Still, American’s increasingly vocal unions are less than impressed by the carrier’s efforts.
“We’re all for competing and going after the competition and offense, but it sounds like your offense is being inspired…[by] the fact that you have no defense,” said Dennis Tajer, a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, the union representing American’s pilots.
“It’s good to see a fight, but we don’t want to have a fight for the sake of drawing blood, metaphorically. And the kind of capacity they’re putting in is another thing,” he added.
“Hopefully, the experience will be positive but it’s a lot of regional flights. There’s mainline in there as well, but it’s a ton of regional flights.”
Luckily for American, Pieper has experience in turf wars like the one the carrier is facing. He was an executive at both Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines while the two were battling for market share at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Pieper said that he respects United’s scale in Chicago, which is similar to American’s control at its important hubs such as DFW Airport and in Charlotte. He added that he is “emboldened” by Delta’s success in Seattle as the smaller hub carrier.
“Delta was successful in planting their loyalty program into Seattle and making it relevant, whether it was sponsoring teams, embedding into the community, and then smartly planning a schedule that would not match Alaska’s in terms of local utility, but was good enough to make all of those things feed together, and that’s really what our game plan is in Chicago.
Harteveldt stressed that even if American remains behind United in terms of its operation, there is still a path to victory.
“You can be No. 2 and still be a winner in that, if American, for example, is No. 2, but gets a disproportionate share of customers on the routes and flights where it does operate, and if American is commanding a revenue premium, that is equal to or perhaps better than United or other airlines that it competes with on those routes,” he said.
“Then, American has won.”