American Airlines

American Airlines and United engage in tit-for-tat route announcements at LAX

In addition to a direct confrontation at ORD, the two are also battling it out at LAX.

Photo: Tomás Del Coro from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

American Airlines, in addition to unveiling three new routes at Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), has also announced that it will begin flights between Los Angeles Airport (LAX) and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) and Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD).

Two more routes that are also flown by United Airlines. This announcement comes just one week after United Airlines announced the launch of two new services from LAX that will compete with American Airlines.

Similar to describing its history at LAX, American Airlines emphasized that 80 years ago, it “became part of aviation history in the City of Angels as one of the first airlines to begin service at Los Angeles Municipal Airport.”

Starting April 7, the airline will deploy its Boeing 737s to fly daily services from LAX to CLE and IAD, complementing its double-daily flights to Washington Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA).

21 overlapping domestic routes at LAX

With the latest additions, American Airlines and United Airlines’ overlapping domestic routes at LAX will now number 20 in April, Cirium’s Diio Mi showed.

Including overlapping same-city services to such airports as DCA or New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), the number climbs to 21.

According to Cirium’s Diio Mi, in April, American Airlines will offer 40 domestic routes from LAX, while United Airlines’ routes number 39, meaning that both carriers compete on around half of their domestic routes from/to LAX.

American Airlines has not flown between LAX and CLE since at least 2000, while it offered LAX-IAD services until March 2020 with daily flights during the same month that it ended the route.

Increased overlap vs 2025

However, the overlap in April 2025 included fewer routes. Excluding same-city domestic services, direct competition between the two airlines was on 17 routes, or 19 if including flights serving the same metropolitan areas, like New York.

These overlapping routes in April 2025 are displayed below.

United Airlines was the first of the two to bump that number up. On January 15, the carrier’s Senior Vice President of Global Network Planning and Alliances, Patrick Quayle, unveiled that United Airlines would launch flights from LAX to John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH) and Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), two airports also served by American Airlines.

Both flights to CMH and PIT will begin on March 29.

Compared to April 2025, American Airlines has removed daily flights from LAX to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), which was another overlapping route.

LAX is comparable to ORD in the sense that airlines can get access to preferential use gates, which has been a hot topic at the latter airport, following United Airlines’ request to allocate gates at ORD. While it gained gates, American Airlines lost access to some.

According to Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), which manages LAX and Van Nuys Airport (VNY), at the end of FY2025, American Airlines had 22 preferential use gates, while United Airlines had 23.

At the end of FY2025, United Airlines held a market share of 15.7% at LAX in terms of emplaned passengers, compared to American Airlines’ 15.2%. Delta Air Lines was the leading airline at the airport, with a market share of 18.9%.

“No airline dominates in shares of enplaned passengers or provides formal ‘hubbing’ activity at LAX.”

However, FY2025 was the first period in which United Airlines carried more passengers than American Airlines at LAX in the past few years, LAWA documents showed. Since FY2021, the top three largest airlines at the airport have lost market share with more international carriers returning to the airport, yet American Airlines was the only one of the top three to welcome fewer passengers in FY2025 compared to FY2024.