A leaked slide deck suggests that United Airlines is pulling further ahead of American Airlines as the preferred hometown carrier at Chicago O’Hare (ORD), but is AA on an irreversible death spiral or simply in need of returning to the basics?

Local Favorite: United Airlines Widens Lead Against American Airlines In Chicago O’Hare

Internal slides obtained by aviation insider JonNYC show a widening gap between American and United in Chicago O’Hare for local traffic, with United now holding a 22-point advantage.

In 2015, 38% of local traffic at ORD belonged to United and 39% to American. Since then, United has built up its domestic and global route network, and the numbers are telling: in 2024, United jumped to 51% of local passenger share while American dropped to 29%.

United was just awarded six additional gates at ORD (at the expense of AA, though there is potential litigation brewing) and plans further expansion, though AA is also growing again in Chicago with a new route to Madrid (MAD) having launched on March 30, 2025 and service to Naples, Italy (NAP) launching on May 6, 2025.

With United’s varied fare products (from basic economy to Polaris business class), it can continue to place pressure on budget carriers by offering basic economy fares at similar price levels while offering a wider range of premium fare products and a network that continues to grow, at least in terms of dots and lines. As budget carriers drop routes and frequencies, so can United, and the inverse is true as well. United feels prepared to win any battle against budget carriers like Spirit and Frontier, with CEO Scott Kirby effectively writing them off as unviable competition.

American Airlines is a different story. The Dallas-based carrier maintains a large hub at ORD and though it has shrunk, its connectivity provides apples-to-apples competition with United. Its loyalty program is better than United’s and its premium product, at least in terms of the seat and food, is competitive (at least when it works…).

But there’s more to the story. 2015 represented the bottom of the barrel for United. Jeff Smisek was in charge and cutting domestic routes in a strange (and failed) bid to grow through cuts. When Oscar Munoz took over and Kirby pivoted to United from American in a specially-created “President” position, the carrier began to rebuild its network from years of neglect.

As View From The Wing points out (looking at Cirium data), the percentage of local traffic reported by United tracks fairly closely with the percentage of seats at ORD that each airline operates (though in the last two years there has been a widening gap).

While United has nicer gates, more space, and utilizes larger aircraft from ORD, it is not inconceivable that AA could close the gap simply by adding capacity back, which would be an important test for Kirby’s “sticky customer” theory.

> Read More: United Airlines CEO Thinks Customers Are “Sticky”

CONCLUSION

United Airlines is pulling ahead of American Airlines in terms of local traffic at O’Hare, but I’m not convinced (yet) that it is purely due to United offering a superior overall product. Rather, I think it’s a function of schedule and network, with United adding more flights while AA has been much slower to grow from its ORD hub. 

Should AA throw in the towel at ORD? Of course not…AA could start winning back market share by introducing exactly the same kind of international flights and widebody domestic service that UA now leads in…it’s not rocket science.

What AA needs at ORD (and PHL and LAX and JFK…) is a strategy that it sticks to.