United and American Airlines are doubling down on flights out of O’Hare International Airport, which has become the stage setting of a market-share competition between its two largest airlines.
On Tuesday, United announced it would add new daily routes to five smaller midwestern cities: Champaign/Urbana; Bloomington/Normal; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Lansing, Michigan and La Crosse, Wisconsin. United also said it would add flights to existing O’Hare-based routes, including to Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The airline, O’Hare’s largest, will reach about 750 flights per day this summer, it said.
The announcement came after American said last week it would add flights from Chicago to Allentown, Pennsylvania, Columbia, South Columbia, and Maui. At the end of last year, American said it was beefing up its spring 2026 schedule at O’Hare by 30% over last year’s, with plans to double service to popular spring break destinations such as Las Vegas.
The escalations in the airlines’ arms race comes after a legal battle over gates at O’Hare last year, which led to United emerging with five new gates. American lost four, but has since picked up two via Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy proceedings.
Under the city’s gate reallocation process, gates at O’Hare are allocated based on an airline’s flying frequency the previous year. The city has touted that policy as one that keeps competition active at O’Hare, which is in the early stages of a massive $8.2 billion revamp.
Chicago’s largest airport overtook Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson to become the busiest airfield in the country last year, according to preliminary federal data. Atlanta’s airport still had the lead on passenger totals.
United timed its announcement to coincide with American’s fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday morning. Its news release also boasted a statement from Gov. JB Pritzker, who said that United’s new flight offerings “demonstrates the company’s sustained commitment to growth in Illinois — boosting our economy, supporting jobs, and strengthening Chicago’s tourism and hospitality industries.”
American is expected to gain gates at O’Hare during the next reallocation because of the flights they’ve added recently. The airline said in a statement Tuesday that it was committed to Chicago and planned to return to pre-pandemic levels of flying out of O’Hare this year, with more than 500 daily departures.
But in an earnings call last week, United CEO Scott Kirby said his airline was “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,” he said.
Kirby also said that United made $500 million in Chicago last year — and suggested that American lost $500 million.
In response to a question about Kirby’s remarks regarding American’s profitability at O’Hare, an American spokesperson pointed to comments made by CEO Robert Isom during Tuesday’s earnings call.
“Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be out there bragging about profitability in a hub when 80% of your team members make a lot less than the market rate,” Isom said. “So we’re doing right by our team members. We’re doing right by our customers.”
Air travelers “benefit from the competition,” Isom added.
United declined to comment on Isom’s jab.
Officials for United, which said it plans to hire 2,500 people in Chicago this year, maintained in a call with reporters that the added routes were “not about gates.”
“People are choosing United, and because people are choosing United, we’re increasing our flying and because we’ve increased the flying, we got five more gates,” said Patrick Quayle, the airline’s senior vice president of global network planning.
“But this is really not about gates. It’s about serving our customers,” he said.
