CHICAGO: ORD & MDW discussion

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by twister244

Someone at a.net described them as the beach towel airline - I like that more

When you ask people from far away who have never been to Chicago, they think of the Bulls and gangsters . All those old gangster movies really left an impression, and gangsters end up with prison stripes in the old movies. Plus not all beach towels have stripes. Condor, the official airline of Chicago

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

Condor is a almost charter style airline, and is partly owned by Lufthansa.

Condor operates independently as a leisure carrier outside of the Lufthansa Group. Lufthansa completely divested its minority stake in Condor by 2009.

According to Gemini AI. . .

. . .

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

When you ask people from far away who have never been to Chicago, they think of the Bulls and gangsters . All those old gangster movies really left an impression, and gangsters end up with prison stripes in the old movies. Plus not all beach towels have stripes. Condor, the official airline of Chicago

Prison stripes is old fashioned. . . I think a solid orange is the new fashion garb for prisoners these days (but what do I know?). . .

A more appropriate comparison would be to Chicago's city flag - as it has two blue stripes. . .



. . .

[twister244]

Major shift in the timeline of construction.......

https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/ma...eases/2026/august/concourse-e-ohare.html

Someone on a.net was quick to jump on this announcement that just hit the streets....

I'm not surprised at this announcement given how aggressively UA is trying to get gates for new routes. No way they can support current operations with T2 out of commission, even with D completed.

[twister244]

Per the ORD X page... Same rendering as before essentially, but with the southern third/half cutoff for the next phase.

[Jstange059]

Steel has gone vertical

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by Jstange059

Steel has gone vertical

Oh shit this is really moving!

[F1 Tommy]

Pretty fast for O'hare construction. You know it still floods by runway 28R/10L when it rains hard. They spent millions of dollars putting in pipes to stop that. They also took out Lake O'hare, so it still floods

[Busy Bee]

Apparantly United wants to increase O'Hare flights by 50% to 1,000/day!!!

[k1052]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Apparantly United wants to increase O'Hare flights by 50% to 1,000/day!!!

For reference this is about how many flights per day Delta handles out of ATL lol.

I have my doubts about that many but their desire to expand aggressively is pretty clear.

[twister244]

FYI - Here's the source:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/transportation/ccb-united-scott-kirby-chicago-20260826/

Of note:

I have a list of 15 new long-haul international destinations in that thousand-flight-a-day hub, and I want to get there someday.

Kirby clearly wants to take over all of ORD.... And he seems intent on putting the thumbs on the scales whenever he can. American Airlines is lucky the feds stepped in, and UA doesn't have an immediate access to new wide-body gates.

Yesterday, UA announced a ton of new international routes, none of which are out of ORD. But that's not because UA isn't interested in adding new long-haul routes at ORD - It's because they don't have the room - Yet.....

There was more interesting quotes from this article that are much more appropriate for the economics thread:

We’re not planning to leave Chicago,” he said. “I’ve never said we were. . . .I do want to grow this into a 1,000-flight-a-day hub. That’s important to me.

In case anyone keeps pushing the long-time rumor that UA is looking to relocate to Denver.....

[Tom In Chicago]

If my scanning of today's headlines can be construed as research, my take is that United is trying to snuff out American at O'Hare, or at least make them less of a competitor. . . which is not good for air fares. . .

. . .

[left of center]

United CEO Kirby has been talking like that for years in regards to AA. American has shown no signs of leaving O'Hare, and has invested quite a bit to pump up its presence here as well. They don't have any other operation that can replace O'Hare as their Midwestern hub, so its pretty unlikely they abandon the airport. They know that staying here is a big thorn in the side of their competitor as well.

In the meantime, the city benefits from added flights and fierce competition on airfares.

[nomarandlee]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

If my scanning of today's headlines can be construed as research, my take is that United is trying to snuff out American at O'Hare, or at least make them less of a competitor. . . which is not good for air fares. . .

. . .

Yep. That Kirby quip, I'd guess, is almost assuredly based on the scenario where UA somehow got AA to forfeit ORD.

I'd rather have fewer flights by UA by keeping the UA/AA competition going strong, rather than UA win out ORD and then have Delta-Atlanta size dominance.

It could be in part because his statement projects optimistic trends like more long-haul flights to mid-markets in the industry broadly, and also more frequent service to small regional markets utilizing more efficient regional aircraft.

What I don't foresee is UA giving up or slighting Denver in any major way in the long-term, which is the main mid-continent competitor and alternative for ORD in terms of UA operations. I think UA's usage of Denver will increase compared to ORD, relatively speaking. Denver has a proportionally healthy population increase and business growth, and the operational dominance and space for operations at DIA.

[twister244]

There's actually a more in-depth article today that dives deeper into Kirby's comments - https://www.chicagobusiness.com/transportation/ccb-united-airlines-scott-kirby-ohare-20260827/

The TLDR is that Kirby actually wanted to add new international routes, but couldn't because of the constraints ORD currently has. He is suggesting that the biggest bottleneck is actually the airspace and FAA, not gate numbers. Whether or not that's true is up for debate...... He mentions that one of the contributing factors here is because we have two hubs, you have twice the number of "catchment flights" that feed smaller cities to ORD for larger flights. Whereas if we were a single hub, you could make the number of flights more efficient. Again - I'm not an expert on this, so this could be Kirby propping up an argument for UA's benefit.

He's also calling AA's bluff by suggesting AA can't keep this strategy of matching UA's route announcements simply because they are losing too much money at ORD. Again - I'm not sure about the validity of the claim - Here is the quote:

“Look, economic gravity is going to eventually win,” he said. “I’m not complaining. I really am not. I’m not trying to change it today. But in the 12 months leading into Q1, American lost $1.1 billion in Chicago. And by the way, that number is going to be bigger for the full year because that’s before their growth push started and before oil prices went up.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by twister244

There's actually a more in-depth article today that dives deeper into Kirby's comments - https://www.chicagobusiness.com/transportation/ccb-united-airlines-scott-kirby-ohare-20260827/

The TLDR is that Kirby actually wanted to add new international routes, but couldn't because of the constraints ORD currently has. He is suggesting that the biggest bottleneck is actually the airspace and FAA, not gate numbers. Whether or not that's true is up for debate...... He mentions that one of the contributing factors here is because we have two hubs, you have twice the number of "catchment flights" that feed smaller cities to ORD for larger flights. Whereas if we were a single hub, you could make the number of flights more efficient. Again - I'm not an expert on this, so this could be Kirby propping up an argument for UA's benefit.

He's also calling AA's bluff by suggesting AA can't keep this strategy of matching UA's route announcements simply because they are losing too much money at ORD. Again - I'm not sure about the validity of the claim - Here is the quote:

Yea that figure is almost certainly not correct and AA does not release that kind of info. Kirby has been saying some version of this for a couple years and the figure keeps mysteriously escalating without any proof. It's self serving for United of course but that's his job.

As for international routes United is adding quite a few but they're almost all out of the east coast hubs to Europe because that's where the best money is. Really the limiting factor is fleet availability and while United has managed their long haul fleet way better than AA they still only have so many planes. Though as they continue to take delivery of the 100 plus more 787s on order that will shift. American made a huge mistake retiring too much of their long haul in the pandemic. Losing the 767-300ERs, 757s, and A330-300s was a disaster for their international traffic once the recovery hit.

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by twister244

There's actually a more in-depth article today that dives deeper into Kirby's comments - https://www.chicagobusiness.com/transportation/ccb-united-airlines-scott-kirby-ohare-20260827/

The TLDR is that Kirby actually wanted to add new international routes, but couldn't because of the constraints ORD currently has. He is suggesting that the biggest bottleneck is actually the airspace and FAA, not gate numbers. Whether or not that's true is up for debate......:

Sure, if you want no spare gates. On paper it looks tight but ok, but if you have any delays for mtx, weather or crews you send flights directly to the holding pad. Also Ground ATC likes to leave them at the CDF pad and forget about them, well after the gate is open. UAL is slick, and use the CDF for live flight departures on busy overflow banks.

The ORD UA/AA battle is between 2 children who can't stand to lose. It will not help either companies bottom line and will cost millions of dollars.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

If my scanning of today's headlines can be construed as research, my take is that United is trying to snuff out American at O'Hare, or at least make them less of a competitor. . . which is not good for air fares. . .

. . .

I've come around to the idea that low fares may not be worth it if we lose the benefit of being a mega hub. The reason ATL is dominant in many ways is because every flight that lands there can connect somewhere else. If you land on United at ORD, all the American flights--let's call them half--aren't ones you can use on one ticket.

Roughly 80% of ATL’s 2025 passenger traffic was carried by Delta and its affiliates. That concentration has drawbacks for competition, but it's useful. Delta can coordinate arrival times, departure times, gate assignments, aircraft sizes, baggage transfers, crews and maintenance around one integrated network using just about every gate.

O’Hare may have more total flights, but United and American operate two largely separate connecting systems. 500 American flights plus 650 United flights do not produce the same network connectivity as 1,150 flights operated within one network.

It's actually amazing thar ORD performs as well as DFW and DEN considering neither airline can get all the flights they would like, all the connections they would like or make much money. Low fares are great, but if UA could turn a nice profit on their flights at ORD, they would invest in more routes, more infrastructure and more flights. Right now both UA and AA offer a lot with a low profit incentive.

ATL has all those flights and connection because of amazingly good hub geometry combined with Delta's dominance. Chicago is one of the best performing airfields in the world because of good geometry, lots of runways and the attraction of Chicago as a destination and entry point.

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by sentinel

Oh shit this is really moving!

So yeah, I see the construction on Facebook O'Hare airport page. I always watching the construction going on.

Originally Posted by Jstange059

Steel has gone vertical

Wow! It's coming along nicely!! Getting there!!

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

Pretty fast for O'hare construction. You know it still floods by runway 28R/10L when it rains hard. They spent millions of dollars putting in pipes to stop that. They also took out Lake O'hare, so it still floods

So yeah, very fast. It's coming along nicely! I always watching the construction on Facebook O'Hare Airport page.