Chicago? Market dynamics? Are we even talking about the same city? The one that illegally demolished Meigs Field in the middle of the night because the mayor didn't like it, to reduce airport choices for the people of Chicago? The one where an attempt to privatize Midway to raid its operating profits for other city programs got derailed when, in part, ethics questions were raised about a set of relationships so complicated I had to draw it out to understand it?

MDW only really came back to life because ORD was at full capacity and Chicago's government was too gridlocked to expand it fast enough; ORD expansion has been consistently controversial for nearly 30 years between 1980-2010, and MDW was the only option that would remotely make sense for a low cost carrier to serve the Chicago area as a result.

Pretty much all of the other capacity controlled inner city US airports - LGA, DAL, and DCA come to mind - are highly regulated, in theory to benefit the traveling public. But as we saw in the huge LGA/DCA slot swap between DL and US and now in this sublease agreement between UA/WN at DAL - the airline industry is incredibly talented at convincing politicians to let them build fortress hubs out of what should be a shared public asset for the convenience of residents of and visitors to our most important cities.