It’s been awhile since we’ve had a good, old-fashioned, knock-down war between two airlines, but sure enough it seems that we are in the early stages of that very thing between American and United. This is centered around a fight over Chicago, but it has already spilled over. Nobody seems interested in blinking.
In theory, these airlines have always been at war, but in recent years United has been surging ahead while American has been busy chasing its own tail. Case-in-point, Chicago. The airline use and lease agreement at O’Hare detailed how gate allocations would work. Someone at United figured out that if it started to rapidly grow capacity, it could get a whole bunch of gates and American would lose. That’s exactly what happened.
Last year, American slowly started ramping up flying at O’Hare, but then when it realized what was happening, it stepped on the gas. HARD. I don’t need to rehash this since it’s something I wrote about only a couple weeks ago. It’s what has happened since then that has made it worth revisiting.
In short, American keeps growing, United threatens angrily, and American keeps growing again. United CEO Scott Kirby was asked about this on the airline’s recent Q4 earnings call. Here’s a snippet:
As we enter 2026, there’s another wave of growth coming from [American]. Mostly that’s going to wind up exactly the same as it did last year, with one difference. In 2025, American added gates. That means we watched it. We could have responded. We chose not to. They’re going to win 3 gates back at our expense when the analysis comes out later this year. We knew that was going to happen. We figured we’d just let it settle into a new normal and that would all be fine.
But in 2026, we’re 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. Look, we’re just going to stay focused. We’ve had the right strategy at the whole network for a decade. We’re going to keep doing it. It’s a winning strategy. It’s working. We’re going to keep doing that in Chicago.
Ok, so, shot across the bow. I guess. United hasn’t exactly been letting up as it is, but this is somewhat disingenuous. American is gaining those gates in the next go-around because it’s based on last year’s flying, three-quarters of which was before United gained all those new gates anyway. The natural expectation here is that United will, in fact, gain back gates in 2027, because it has those extra six gates operating for most of 2026. But this is semantics. The point is, United is mad that American isn’t doing what United thinks is rational. So United is going to make sure that it becomes even less rational for American to make those moves.
Giddyup.
So what does American do? It just keeps adding. We already saw it pull forward its summer schedule into February, not because demand is strong but rather so it can keep those gates. Now, right around when Scott Kirby uttered his proclamation, American added a trio of new routes.
Allentown/Bethlehem and Columbia (SC) will run 2x daily Embraer 170s starting May 21. Kahului will fly 1x daily on a B787-8 during the winter season.
United has flown Kahului for years with up to 1x daily during peak winter/spring break and then down to 1x weekly for the rest of the year. Outside of United hub Washington/Dulles and the obviously unserved Dallas/Love, Kahului is American’s largest unserved domestic market from O’Hare.
As for Allentown, American actually was flying until it left in 2023, but United recently shut the ABE – Newark bus route and has upped Chicago to 3x daily. And in Columbia, American had that through the holidays ending in Jan 2025, but now it’s coming back. I can’t imagine these are particularly lucrative flights or American never would have left, but they are the first and third largest unserved markets (by American) that can be served by regional aircraft. This feels pretty straightforward if American is just going to keep going down the list.
But enough about Chicago. What’s different now is that the war seems to have spilled over into another hub for both airlines, Los Angeles. LAX, of course, isn’t dominated by any airline. American made a play to grow it, but it abandoned the Pacific hub during the pandemic and cut back. United has been like a yo-yo in LA over the years, but now it wants to grow again.
It was something of a surprise when United added a bunch of summer-only routes like Portland (ME) to LAX, but it’s not a terribly expensive bet to make. If it works, great. Then United has a way to use those airplanes on an off-peak Saturday. But it also added three new LAX routes year-round with Columbus (OH), Kansas City, and Pittsburgh joining the network.
Of those routes, American flies 1x daily to both Columbus and Pittsburgh. Neither of these are American hubs, but Pittsburgh can be considered more of a stronghold from the old US Airways hub days. But still, this doesn’t seem like the kind of filing that would gain anyone’s attention. Or so I thought.
American is apparently pretty upset about this, so it will lose a bunch of money flying from LAX to both Cleveland and Washington/Dulles, both United hubs. Dulles is one of the larger unserved markets from LAX, but Cleveland isn’t even close. This is not a demand-based move.
I’m honestly not sure what American hopes to gain with these routes. They aren’t going to do well, but it certainly sends a warning shot over at United that LAX is now on the table in this war. And American has decided LAX is a market it should defend as its own.
A lot of what we’ve seen lately doesn’t seem like the smart thing to do financially. But when emotion gets involved, well, watch out. It could mean some great deals this summer.
