After the look at United’s local hub share recently, you asked to see American and Delta. I am happy to oblige, and today we’ll start with American. American had been shedding share in several markets, but it has reversed that, at least in some of them. The first reversal we’ll look at is a familiar chart: Chicago. But first, a reminder:
To do this work, I pulled annual passenger share for United and the next largest airlines using the Department of Transportation’s Origin & Destination Survey data (DB1B/C) via Cirium. This looked only for passengers that weren’t connecting through the hub. The problem with this, however, is that the data that’s public is only domestic. So, I’ll present that here and then talk how international would likely change the results.
And now, back to American’s hubs. I already had this chart in the United post, but it becomes more important now that the FAA has ruled on how it will allow O’Hare to run this summer.
Chicagoland Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
Post-pandemic, United really took advantage of American’s market neglect, and it grew its share significantly. American realized this in 2024, and it started pouring capacity back in for future schedules. In 2025, you can see the change in local share which is a direct result of American just having a lot more seats in the market.
But now, O’Hare is overscheduled as American continues to try to grow more and United matches the airline. The FAA has now stepped in, set a cap, and said that this summer’s capacity will be proportional to what flew last summer (2025). Overall, airlines will have to drop 150 to 200 daily operations in total compared to what’s filed, but the real fight was over how those cuts would be divvied up.
Using 2025 is good news for American in that if 2023 or 2024 had been chosen, it would have been forced to cancel so many more flights. But it’s better for United than if 2019 had been chosen. So, expect 2025’s share in this chart to carry forward, barring a shift in local vs flow strategy.
Next up is American’s favorite, Charlotte. I say it’s American’s favorite, because there is no real competition there.
Charlotte Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
Sure enough, American did see a little erosion post-pandemic as low-cost operators tried to make a small dent, but 2025 was a bounce-back kind of year for American here as well.
Moving on to American’s biggest and most important hub, say hello to the Dallas Metroplex.
Dallas Metroplex Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
This actually looks a lot like the Charlotte one, to the point where I had to double-check the data. But sure enough, once again, after seeing the ULCCs make some inroads in post-pandemic years, American rebounded in 2025. And Southwest fell off. I imagine that will change as Southwest has finished implementing its big product changes, and that may draw people back in the fold. But nobody is ever challenging American for supremacy in this market.
Now it’s time for another familiar chart, the Los Angeles Basin. We saw this in the United post, and here it is again.
Los Angeles Basin Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
From an American perspective, LA is all about the shrinking. The Pacific hub went away (not reflected here since this is domestic) and then the rest of the network shrunk accordingly. But unlike in some of the other markets, American has not regained any ground in the LA area. It remains below Delta, and United keeps creeping ever closer. One thing of note is that American’s operation at LAX has seen much more construction than any other airline, so it could reconsider in a couple years when all its gates are open again.
And while we’re on duplication, let’s look at New York again.
New York City Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
American has seen something of a rebound, but these numbers are wonky. After all, it was in the prior few years that American entered in the Northeast Alliance with JetBlue. With that, JetBlue started operating a lot of LaGuardia flights that American had run previously. One thing to keep in mind is that in 2025, American shifted its strategy in NYC to start flying more to big markets, like Orlando, Tampa, etc. So that will also be a factor in the 2025 rebound, but … if we just compare to 2019, the airline is flat.
A little further south, we have Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
American has been pretty steady here in general, but it does look like some 2023 ULCC growth had a noticeable impact. That’s gone, however, and American is back to where it was in Philly as of 2025, if not a little higher.
Now let’s move on to Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun.
Phoenix Valley of the Sun Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
It’s been down for both American and Southwest, though American did pop back up in 2025 a little. There’s been growth from pretty much every airline in the area over the last few years, so it’s not a surprise to see this come back down a bit. With international flying, the gap vs Southwest is certainly smaller than it shows here. But Southwest is still the clear leader in the market.
How about South Florida? On this one I did combine Miami with Fort Lauderdale and, unimportantly, West Palm Beach. Because of course in Miami alone, it’s all American, all the time.
South Florida Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
American actually has seen its share decline in South Florida since before the pandemic as other airlines have made moves. But JetBlue interestingly hasn’t been one of those airlines. It did put a lot of growth in the market later in 2025 and into this year, so we can probably expect to see that change. Spirit has dropped, of course, but it’s really Delta that has come on pretty strong in the last couple of years.
And finally, we look at DC… again.
Washington/Baltimore Local Passenger Share by Year
Data via Cirium
As we talked about in the United post, American is now behind United and Southwest (assuming we include BWI). Operational restrictions at National certainly hurt, but American could still increase gauge and focus more on local traffic than connecting if it wanted to do so.
Overall, American did turn around some of that share decline in post-pandemic years in quite a number of its hubs. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it still has several hubs where it is not the leader or likely very close to it. There’s certainly a lot for American’s new Chief Commercial Officer Nat Pieper to think through.
