In the latest shot fired in a Chicago O'Hare turf war, United Airlines announced five new routes from the airport that will begin this spring.
The airline also said it will increase capacity from O'Hare, either with more flights or larger planes, to more than 80 cities this summer. United estimates growth of 170 flights to a peak of 750 per day in the summer, a nearly 30% increase.
The five new O'Hare routes will serve Champaign/Urbana, Ill.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; Lansing, Mich.; La Crosse, Wis.; and Bloomington, Ill. All the routes will be flown four times per day on 50-seat regional aircraft, beginning in late April and early May. United will compete with American on all five city pairs.
The routes are in addition to 20 O'Hare routes United had already announced for 2026, said United senior vice president of global network planning Patrick Quayle.
United's existing O'Hare destinations that will receive additional capacity will include airports of all sizes, Quayle said, from Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles to Dayton, Ohio, and Lexington, Ky.
Meanwhile, American Airlines is scheduled to fly 34% more departures from O'Hare in March than it did a year earlier, according to Cirium flight-schedule data. When American announced its expansion plans in late December, American chief strategy officer Steve Johnson said, "We're committed to rebuilding our Chicago hub to be stronger and more compelling for our customers."
Further, American on Jan. 23 announced it will take on United on three more O'Hare routes.
United has been the market leader at O'Hare these past few years, rebuilding at the airport much more quickly than American after the pandemic. During last week's Q4 earnings call, United CEO Scott Kirby said that United would respond to American's flight surge at O'Hare with a surge of its own, plus he claimed that American is losing millions of dollars trying to close the O'Hare gap.
During a call with the media on Jan. 26 to announce its latest O'Hare routes, United executives sought to downplay the significance of American to its own strategy. Kirby was not on that media call.
"I'm actually not worried about what they do," said Quayle, later adding that United's focus is on building an O'Hare schedule that its customers want to fly.