After last October’s gate reallocation, the battle lines were drawn at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. United had control of Terminal 1 already and had wrested full control of Terminal 2 away from other airlines (the one exception being its close partner Air Canada having a gate). American continued to have its hub in Terminal 3, but it lost ground, nearly exiting its old stomping ground on Concourse G entirely. But now, it’s time to talk reallocation once again, and American will regain territory on Concourse G. This year is poised to be even more complex, and I blame Spirit.
Let’s take a look at the battle map.
Oh wait, that’s not it. Hold on. Here is the map since last October:
The current status quo shows United and American controlling the vast majority of gates in the central terminal complex. (Delta and Southwest out in Terminal 5 are pretty much irrelevant to this discussion.) The only outliers other than that one Air Canada gate were all on Concourse G.
Spirit had four gates on G while Alaska controlled one. Seven were common use, and one was unassigned. That left American with just two gates on G, those closest to H. But now, things are changing again.
It started late last year when Spirit took $30 million from American to assign two of its gates, G8 and G10, to American. Then, just recently, it got United to pay $30.2 million for its other two gates, G12 and G14. From now on, Spirit will use common use gates for its operation… as long as it still has one (an operation, I mean).
But all of this is fleeting, isn’t it? After all, February kicks off the next reallocation season which will culminate in the next shifting of gates going into effect in October. But what will happen? I am not completely sure.
We do know that American’s surging operation last year means it will gain some gates. Remember, United picked up six gates last year, but they didn’t get assigned until October 1. So for nine months that lead to this year’s allocation, United was operating off fewer gates while American was ramping up quickly. United will lose something. There could be some shuffling with Delta or other little guys too, but again, nobody cares about Terminal 5.
So the question again becomes… how many gates will each airline gain or lose? This is where things get nutty. I asked the City of Chicago exactly how this works with Spirit giving up its gates. Will Spirit’s utilization at each gate contribute to American’s and United’s numbers? Despite some people at airlines saying they thought this would work this way, that is not the case. The Chicago Department of Aviation’s Director of Communications Kevin Bargnes explained that except for a couple of exceptions which don’t apply here:
Primarily, the only thing that matters when gate frontage is reallocated at O’Hare International Airport is how many scheduled departures each airline operates during the calendar year. It doesn’t matter which specific gates those flights use. It also doesn’t matter whether those flights depart from the airline’s own preferential gates, common-use gates, or another airline’s preferential gates
Alright, so we just take total departures and look at percentages for those airlines. I guess Spirit’s goal is to keep having the right to 4 gates so that American and United can keep using them. So let’s look at some numbers.
The way I calculate it, American’s share of departures in calendar year 2025 has now climbed about a point to 39.5 percent while United’s has fallen about a point to near 51.5 percent. Playing with the numbers, this looks like American should gain about 3 gates while United would lose the same amount. At the same time, Spirit does look to be underutilizing its gates the most with Delta and Southwest to a lesser extent.
So does that mean Spirit will lose gates? If so, what does that mean for American and United? I’m sure it’s buried in their contracts with each other, though I did see something in a United memo that caught my eye. United says one of the Spirit gates will go back to the city for reallocation this year. I take that to mean that United paid $15.1 million to effectively prevent itself from having to lose one of the gates it has today that it expected would leave. My head is spinning trying to figure this out.
My assumption here is that with the purchase of Spirit gates on G, United will probably have enough gates there to give most back and not have the rest of the footprint impacted. Meanwhile, American will gain more back on G. The wildcard in this is we don’t know how many common-use gates the city needs next year.
We’ll know for sure once June rolls around, and in this case, I’m so unsure of the situation that I will be eagerly awaiting that June date. The battle for Chicago rolls on.
78 responses to “Chicago O’Hare’s Gate Fight Gets Even More Complex… and Spirited”
CF,
1. How do common use gates work? For instance the common use gates have planes sitting in them from yesterday evening’s flights (dog & cat airlines) Spirit has a flight at 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM and needs 2 gates. If the common use gates are being used by other airlines how does this work? Who gets the priority?
2. Does the new Terminal D come into play?
Great point on question No. 1. Could United or American try getting the common use gate to add even more flights to its gate allocation figures?
Emil D – 1) This is a challenge because the airport uses the gates to help compensate for construction projects, so it’s kind of fluid. If an airplane is just sitting on a gate and someone wants to use it, then they should force them to tow the airplanes off so they can get better use.
2) D is supposed to replace T2, so that’s going to be all United. But I figure by the time that’s done, they’ll have a whole new lease anyway.
@Brett
D-Concourse is not replacing T2 and is an extension off of T1/C-Concourse. The Satellite Concourse will be built west of C & D-Concourse
Key Details on the Replacement Project:
*Satellite Concourse D: Currently under construction and scheduled for completion by 2028, this is the first of the new concourses. It is located south of Concourse C and will feature 19 gates, high ceilings, and a nature-inspired design.
*Satellite Concourse E: This second satellite concourse is planned for the west, providing 24 additional gates for domestic and international flights.
*Global Terminal: The new terminal, designed by Jeanne Gang, will replace the existing Terminal 2, creating a centralized hub for connecting flights. This terminal/concourse will connect with existing south end of B-Concourse and connect also with the famous Rotunda
I
*Infrastructure: The project includes a new underground tunnel system for both passenger movement and baggage handling to connect these new spaces.
Without D-Concourse and the Satellite there will be no new T2 connecting to B-Concourse and the Rotunda
Concepts are available online
FlyOZA – Sorry, I didn’t mean it technically replaces T2. I meant that it replaces United’s current T2 gates since the new Global Terminal that sits on top of T2 will be primarily an international facility that has far fewer gates at what, 11 to 17? And there are 41 today? As I see it, D and E will replace what United has in T2 while the Global Terminal will allow United and American to move their long-haul arrivals out of T5.
The Global Terminal (to replace existing Terminal 2) is intended to allow for international flights – conveniently located between the two hub airlines – instea of having all international flights over at Terminal 5 which makes connecting to a domestic flight burdensome. While Studio Gang is the ‘theme’ architect, they smartly partnered with Corgan, who is well versed in the specifics of airport terminal design.
International traffic into O’Hare had been flat for years (since CDA had not added gates for 20 years until the L stinger jump started the current expansion plan). As I said to the Choose Chicago travel boss “international visitors to Chicago don’t get here by bus”.
Grok agrees with your prediction, but it did base its prediction partly on your articles.
But when was the last time Elon Musk flew a commercial airline?
Nobody cares what grok regurgitates.
Considering I tried I cared; I wanted to see if it had any additional insights into the City’s rules about Spirit and it didn’t. It proved that Cranky is better than AI even with complex contracts. And you sound like a nice guy Patrick. I’ll use my abacus next time.
The only drawback of the almighty abacus, as far as I am aware, is a slightly inferior performance (when compared to Grok) at copiously generating hate-porn…
Like most others here, including Cranky Brett, I just can’t quit this story! The irony is that the gates being fought for so arduously are some of the oldest, most decrepit, substandard gates in use at any major US airport.
But as a flying member of Team United, give em hell, Scott; no market too small, no frequency too great!
How long until one of them does some DCA / LGA style slot squatting and flies the smallest plane possible 14x daily to MKE?
MKE is too far away. Some ORD-ORD 10 minutes sightseeing flights should do the trick. This is where revenue based mileage earning really shines as old distance based earning will give frequent flyers a big fat 0 miles.
ORD to GYY and RFD!
1. Chicago is the third most populous city in the US – NY, LA, then Chicago. It has a large population of people who came from other countries (Mexico, Poland etc). Chicago is home to many wealthy people and Chicago residents are intense sports fans. People travelling to Notre Dame – tend to fly into Chicago, stay in one of the many “fun” neighborhoods, then drive over for the game. Impossible to ignore this market.
2. The formula in the lease takes seat count into account – favoring larger seat aircraft operations, not RJ’s.
Feels like the city should do something like a 2-year rolling average to prevent this kind of year-to-year volatility. I guess they don’t really care since the 1-year model has created the current capacity war
United as Putin’s Russia in the clip-art… yikes.
Terminal 2 is like the old LGA. It was obsolete 20 years ago!. Also, why is Delta allowing gates to be taken away? If they want to be a major player at ORD they need to step up their game.
There’s already too much capacity between UA and AA; DL doesn’t need or want to win the local Chicago customer. DL just needs enough gates to get their customers from elsewhere in the country to ORD
If DL has 7 gates and if they run decent utilization, they could squeeze maybe 8 turns per gate which is 56 flights. Then you can assume (I’m making these up) 10 to ATL, 3 SEA, 7 LGA, 3 JFK, 5 BOS, 3 to SLC, 8 to MSP, 8 DTW plus 3 to LAX starting at some point, that’s 50 flights per day.
My point is DL has been shrinking their gate count over the last 2 years but it was too much capacity for them anyways. They are probably at about the right size now
See Bee, If DL wants to be relevant they need to offer more destinations out of ORD. When I travel for work I do not want to go through hubs if I can help it. Both AA and UA offer many direct flights. DL? A very small amount.
Not gonna happen. Not when there are not one but two other legacies duking it out. You are going to get flights to hubs and that’s it.
But that’s my point, they don’t need or want to be relevant to the local customer. Airlines can’t be #1 in every market – it’s literally impossible, and they know that
Airlines have limited number of assets (planes), and they need to put them in positions that will generate profits. Adding more capacity in their strength markets protect their position on the S-curve (i.e., outsized share in markets earn outsized revenue). DL adding planes to ORD would continue to throw Chicago supply/demand out of whack as there is too much supply, and DL would still be much smaller than UA or AA
people continue to conflate the gate spat that is going on with AA and UA and the number of gates that each need to control w/ what is going on in terminal 5.
There are dozens of common use gates in terminal 5 and DL needs more gates to park planes at night than they need to run their daily schedule.
DL is still and will be the largest carrier in terminal 5. WN operates less than 10 flights/day at ORD.
ORD is a spoke for DL in another carrier(s) hub but DL still has as good of or better coverage from ORD to DL’s hubs than AA or UA have from DL hubs.
the real issue is that the whole gate use formula at ORD forces AA and UA (and any other airline that wants to hold onto gates in the T1-3 complex) to overschedule which erodes profits due to overcapacity.
While real lives are being lost in Ukraine, the ORD shootout will come to an end when both sides realize that they can co-exist given their network strengths elsewhere even if they are not equally sized at ORD.
“ORD is a spoke for DL in another carrier(s) hub but DL still has as good of or better coverage from ORD to DL’s hubs than AA or UA have from DL hubs”
Because ORD is a much larger and more important market than ATL, and all of Delta’s other hubs. You can take a break from cherry-picking data to fuel a narrative for just one post.
Delta has hubs in MSP and DTW in the Midwest and they have minimal competition at those two hubs. They make lots of money flying to those two hubs. They could never make that money if they became a third competitor at ORD and their connecting traffic would be spread too thin.
I’ve heard that Delta will add LAX to its nonstop destinations from O’Hare this year (2026). I hope that rumor is true.
Jon – Not a rumor!
https://news.delta.com/delta-deepens-lax-investment-new-service-hong-kong-and-chicago
Excellent. I look forward to giving those flights a try. :)
DL also has 7-10 daily flights from MDW to ATL (3-4x), MSP (2-3x) and DTW (2-3x). Guess they don’t do the “shuttle” type service to LGA anymore but that might have been ages ago.
AA and UA do not fly from MDW.
In aviation terms it was a lifetime ago. In reality, it’s only been a few years.
AA doesn’t have MDW routes, true, but UA does.
No. LGA was worse. Give LGA its due.
I’m actually amazed United didn’t respond faster to American’s ramp up to prevent losing even 3 gates.
Why not just move spirit to Termina 5. I’m confused as unlike 1-3, 5 seems to have lots of empty gates most of the day(especially the high numbered new ones at the end.) could this better allocate gate space?
At this rate, it’s unknown whether or not we’ll need to move spirit away from any terminal in a year or two…
I’d guess that once you’re in a terminal, you’re grandfathered in, and if nothing else T3 is more convenient for the CTA Blue Line station than T5 is, a plus for budget airline flyers. (That’s not a jab at anyone, I’ve used the Blue Line to get into the city, saves major cash on cab/Uber.)
So Spirit probably doesn’t want to move to T5 unless they have to.
David – It wouldn’t surprise me if that happens eventually, if Spirit is still around. But as long as there are common use gates available in T3, why move?
If there are dozens of open gates in T5 why can’t AA and UA use them? At many other airports like EWR they operate from different terminals. I’m confused? I realize it’s not ideal to operate from multiple terminals but it is an option?
T5 isn’t connected to T1/T2/T3 after security, so domestic connecting passengers arriving or departing from T5 would have to reclear security when they don’t now. And domestic and international arrivals have to be kept segregated until the int’l arrivals clear immigration and customs. Now if you’re only using one or two dedicated gates for domestic, then you can make a path to get your domestic passengers around I&C, even funnel them onto a bus if you want, but if you tried to flip gates between domestic and international arrivals across the day, that’d get to be a real pain.
And even with a dedicated path, you can get a mess like this one that popped up on my Bluesky feed this morning:
https://www.headforpoints.com/2026/02/10/british-airways-experience-manchester-terminal-2/
The T-5 gate situation is odd. Aeromexico uses one of Delta’s gates; Delta uses a common use gate (in the M-20s) occasionally. Perhaps T-5 will eventually be mainly SkyTeam members. OneWorld partners (Qatar, RJ, etc.) might be headed to T-3 or the new international terminal if that ever gets built.
With all of this gate nonsense what would happen if a new entrant (Avelo, Breeze, etc) would want some gates? Just curious
They would utilize common use gates
Avelo is already at O’Hare using common gates in T5.
I wouldn’t call flights only to New Haven being present. Contour and DAC have more destinations than Avelo.
I’m curious why SW isn’t trying to spread their wings at ORD?
Up to 250 daily flights at Midway probably has a lot to do with it.
Their position at ORD is primarily defensive with a smidge of ULCC type opportunism. That is, defensive flights to WN strongholds like BNA, AUS, LAS, PHX and DEN as well as vacation / VFR type flights to Florida, Cancun, PR and DR.
In the current environment, no sane carrier should be trying to “spread their wings at ORD.” As Cranky has covered in multiple prior posts, American has been bleeding out there and United is going for the kill shot. Now enter this frequency/capacity march to the death. SWA is in fine shape at MDW with a few random flights to/from ORD. Leave it at that and wait for the dust to settle on ORD.
I’ll be honest I didn’t have “equating a full-scale genocidal war against free and independent people to a business squabble of 2 airlines at O’Hare” on my 2026 airline bingo card.
In this absolute masterpiece of an analogy, Brett, I guess bombing the cities into oblivion and taking ruined land is an equivalent of taking more gates, right? What’s the equivalent of committing war crimes then? Hunting and killing civilians is probably just like making snarky comments on an earnings call, right? And bombing maternity wards, children cancer centers, animal shelters, apartment buildings is like what then? I’m getting lost in your very funny and edgy analogy, Brett. Help me out. Thanks.
This fight means more to me than the invasion of Ukraine does because it’s taking place in my home and I have credit cards for both airlines. Therefore, I’ve got a piece of the action here.
I’ll third this remark. Even if I weren’t a former United employee, I’d find this deeply insensitive.
When I was young, I’d make wisecracks and it would cost me something relatively small. When you’re older, the costs become much higher.
Just to add further, you had an April Fool’s Day post about Russia invading Ukraine back in 2014–as Mirza sarcastically noted in the comments, “This [post] aged very well.”
https://crankyflier.com/2014/04/01/aeroflot-launches-takeover-of-ukraine-international-airlines-eyes-air-moldova
Oh wow. Well, I guess some people haven’t lost loved ones in a war, and it really shows.
I’m surprised to see this level of insensitivity and geopolitical ignorance from someone who supposedly travels enough to be more aware than this.
This is deeply hurtful.
The fact Brett hasn’t responded to anyone pointing this out says a lot. Super disappointing and that old post – wow…
I agree, as a weekly reader and listener of the Air Show, I find the graphic surprising coming from Brett and in very poor taste.
I don’t get why they are using data from before the gate reallocation to determine the succeeding gate allocation. Wouldn’t you want to wait for the first reallocation to be complete before taking new data?
The lease allows any signatory to request a gate reallocation each year, but does not require it to happen.
I’m guessing that they (the airport) wanted this provision in there and to be a regular part of the long-term lease, so the annual cadence makes sense. The actual gate moves are always going to have some kind of lag, so I don’t see any way you could really speed up that process much.
I suppose they could’ve limited the request for reallocation to be once every two years? and only base it on the most recent year of data?
This sort of back-and-forth is annoying, but a) the airport absolutely wants to encourage this kind of competition and growth – that’s a big reason this provision is here, and b) they didn’t contemplate COVID when creating this lease and I doubt anyone anticipated one of the hub carriers (but only one) pulling back so far.
And as far as I can tell, the whole reason we’re here is because AA pulled back so much.
Imagine a hypothetical airport with two airlines, A and B. A operates 45 departures, B has 55 departures a day, for 100 total. It’s a nice 45% to 55% market share, and gates are allocated accordingly.
Then, for some reason, airline A cuts back to 40 departures, while B holds at 55. Now A’s market share drops three points (40/95 = 42%) and B’s increases by 3 points without adding any flights (55/95 = 58%)
That’s more or less how we got here.
I’m not sure if it needs to be every other year, but it might make sense to do a rolling year from the date of reallocation. Whipsawing is never a good way to run a government or governmental agency.
Request for reallocation every two years is not realistic. The airline business changes too rapidly.
Let me make sure I understand how anti-trust works in the US.
Spirit and JetBlue, which were something like 6th and 7th in the US in size, could not merge. It would have been anti-competitive, says a Federal court.
But, Spirit can sell public assets, i.e., gates at an airport, to the two incumbents with the most gates already at 51% and 39% (90% of the gates already). Hmmm….head spinning craziness.
Also, nice map. I see what you did there.
The judge in the Spirit/JetBlue merger case based a lot of his judgment not on the merger reducing national competition in general, but that the merger would specifically remove an ULCC from the market. I’ve seen more than a few analysts refer to this interpretation as debatable, at best, but B6 eventually didn’t pursue appeals.
Also, at the time Spirit wasn’t in bankruptcy proceedings and was characterized as an viable ongoing business. If JetBlue, or anyone, wanted to buy Spirit right now it’d likely get passed through without major issues other than the usual slot concessions at LGA, that sort of thing.
The entire Chapter 11 process puts a strong emphasis on preserving companies, much more so than law in most other countries, even in the core Anglosphere. Once a company is in the shape Spirit is in now, it can do almost anything to stay afloat that isn’t either flat-out illegal or prohibited by contract provisions that aren’t within the bankruptcy court’s power to waive.
As pointed out in the article Spirit didn’t really “sell” anything, they sublet their leased gates. They don’t own the gates and very much may not get to renew their leases under the reallocation process. So this is very different from a merger, nothing was owned or permanently sold, the terms of the lease apparently allow subleasing especially as such subleasing will be penalized because your own share of departure percentage will probably be hurt by it
What’s anti-competitive about Spirit selling off their gate leases?
ORD maintains a large reserve of common use gates precisely to ensure there is access for either existing airlines to increase service or for new competitors to enter the market. That’s part of the allocation process, too – the City determines how many common use gates they will need.
The reason the JetBlue-Spirit merger was blocked was not only because it would’ve eliminated a competitor, but because both of the airlines had a massive overlap in their route network – one that they really tried to sneak past the judge in a way that did not help their case.
How do you see Southwest at Midway being affected by American and United’s fight at O’Hare? Obviously, they’re two different airports, but they’re both serving the same market. Would Southwest pull back a little with more capacity coming into the city and let the dust settle?
I think Southwest just keeps doing its thing and hopes it dies down eventually
I recall a study / analysis conducted a few years ago that showed how MDW created its own market specific to MDW.
Therefore, what happens at ORD could have minimal impact on MDW if the MDW market is a “sticky” market.
The taxiway/terminal improvement projects take way too long to complete there it seems.
By the time they get done they’ll need to start over again.
We need a new soap opera name for the Chicago conflict as the sequel to “As Seattle Turns”
Chicago P.D. (Pissing Duel), Wednesdays on NBC?
Guiding Flight?
insane graphic
Love CF, but using a Ukraine map here is in poor taste.
I guess he’s reserving Gaza for United vs Spirit.
The irony is that DL is benefitting the most from NK’s cutbacks, not UA. That is also true of B6.
The difference between DL and UA is that DL doesn’t make threatening statements about going after competitors but they do have a pretty good track record of achieving what UA wants; you need only look at WN’s pullback at ATL to see that point.
and, no, Gaza shouldn’t be used in any comparison outside of war and esp. not for US aviation.
Calmez-vous, everyone: it was a joke.
Does American still control the ground gates in the basement of G? If not, it is probably awkward with the old AA eagle logo in the floor.
They covered the terrazzo logo with a giant floor mat because these gates are the new home of Jet Blue and (I think) Denver Air Connection.
Your choice of graphics is neither pithy nor entertaining. It commodifies and dismisses the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians and participates in the ten stages of genocide. You’re either ignorant or horrific.
War/Genocide: not funny
Applying it to an airline battle (the sole focus of this blog): insensitive, but very funny
–
The application of a graphic is not an endorsement of the original depiction (in this case: war invasion) or a dismissal of the ongoing effects of said depiction. It’s also possible that some people are oversensitive, even for good reasons. To not be as affected or sensitive does not make someone ignorant or horrific.