Originally Posted by
smilinganddialing
Chicago has 2.5x the O&D traffic of Philly with a downtown that's booming - highest job creation and population growth of any city core in the US.
I don't call it UA territory but I accept that some data show UA is rather larger than AA at ORD. (Destination set, frequencies, and ASMs would be needed for robust analysis.)
I don't question the potential of the city of Chicago but I observe air demand there is spread over two airports and three carrier hub operations rather than one as at PHL (and ATL and CLT).
Matching UA flight-for- flight and destination for destination out of ORD may not be how AA chooses to compete.