United Will Operate 750 Daily Flights From Chicago—Leaked Slides Show Revenue Falling Nearly 3x Faster Than Elsewhere

United Airlines may be about to start losing a ton of money at Chicago O’Hare, doing ‘strategic flying’ that doesn’t make sense based on what passengers are looking to fly (and pay for).

• They want to grow their market share in Chicago, which will help them keep their massive portfolio of gates and avoid letting American Airlines take any back that they lost last year.
• And they’re willing depress profits to foist losses on American Airlines as well, hoping that American will abandon its fight for relevance in the city leaving United to rake in profits in the future.

To do this, United will offer its largest schedule in Chicago ever this summer. They will serve 222 total destinations (175 domestic, 47 international). Meanwhile, American is targeting “more than 180 destinations.” I get to 183.

United will reach up to 750 flights per day from Chicago this summer. That’s about 25% more than they were flying in 2019 (pre-pandemic). Meanwhile, American is only back to roughly pre-pandemic levels of just over 500 flights per day.

Last week United’s CFO admitted that profits had already fallen at O’Hare but claimed to still be making money. That’s before the huge build up in flights even starts.

Enilria points out that leaked internal slides from United shared by JonNYC show what kind of an effect on profit the fight is already having on United’s financial performance.

Stop stop he’s already dead pic.twitter.com/20i9gpptkb

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 19, 2026

pic.twitter.com/fBpsfpsQ0r

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 19, 2026

Here’s what Enilria notes:

United intended to show American doing worse than they do at ORD, but it also shows (with a little math) that United is also going backwards at Chicago ORD and you can bet it will get a lot worse when the capacity apocalypse hits this Summer.

United’s revenue per available seat mile is down 8.1% at O’Hare since 2022 vs 2.9% elsewhere. So performance of their Chicago flights “has fallen 2.74x mroe than everything else.”

United’s strategy is simple, a variation on classic ‘dumping’ in anti-trust. But it often doesn’t work!

• United believes they can sustain losses in Chicago, and that American – which isn’t profitable today – can’t.
• They believe Wall Street will force American to back off from Chicago. The truth is that Chicago will be long-term profitable for American if they are competitive there, because it’s arguably the second most important credit card market in the country. United keeps pushing the narrative that American is burning cash on flights but their actual profit comes from the cobrand credit card.
• If American backs off, they’ll lose gates. United will gain gates. They’ll gain an enduring advantage and a moat in Chicago. Thus they’ll be able to raise airfares and also gain credit card market share.

Among the flights United has announced, just since fall:

Destination
# of daily frequencies
Aircraft

Paducah, KY (PAH)
1.0
CRJ-550

Santa Barbara, CA (SBA)
1.0
737 MAX

Lynchburg, VA (LYH)
1.0
CRJ-200

Eugene, OR (EUG)
1.0
737 MAX

Rochester, MN (RST)
3.0
CRJ-550

Wausau, WI (CWA)
3.0
CRJ-550

Marquette, MI (MQT)
3.0
CRJ-550

Monterey, CA (MRY)
1/7
737 MAX

St. George, UT (SGU)
1/7
E175

Idaho Falls, ID (IDA)
1/7
E175

Clarksburg, WV (CKB)
1.0 (starts 3/7, then daily)
CRJ-200

Kearney, NE (EAR)
1.0
CRJ-200

Erie, PA (ERI)
3.0 (summer)
CRJ-550

Bristol/Tri-Cities, TN (TRI)
3.0 (summer)
CRJ-550

Lincoln, NE (LNK)
+1.0 (incremental; total 5.0)
CRJ-550

Champaign/Urbana, IL (CMI)
4.0
CRJ-200 / CRJ-550

Kalamazoo, MI (AZO)
4.0
CRJ-200 / CRJ-550

Lansing, MI (LAN)
4.0
CRJ-200 / CRJ-550

La Crosse, WI (LSE)
4.0
CRJ-200 / CRJ-550

Bloomington/Normal, IL (BMI)
4.0
CRJ-200 / CRJ-550

Guadalajara, MX (GDL)
1.0 (limited-time)
737

Most of the growth in Chicago isn’t actually new cities, it’s additional frequencies on existing routes.

Given the importance to American of Chicago in the long-term, Enirlia argues that they can’t walk away from Chicago – they’d be better off filing bankruptcy, emerging leaner, and undercutting United.

That’s probably true. But incentives of managers of a public company are often too short-term to take that approach. They want to keep their jobs, and pressure could keep them from this long-term view. That’s what Scott Kirby is banking on. If he’s wrong, though, he’s going to burn a lot of money in Chicago but won’t actually get anything for it.

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