In a leaked internal memo, American Airlines executives have accused United Airlines of dumping capacity at Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) looks to curb the number of flights at the airport because this summer, the number of daily arrivals and departures will exceed ORD’s manageable limits.
Accusing of dumping capacity
In a leaked internal memo from March 3, which was published by Edward Russell on Bluesky, David Seymour, the Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Nat Pieper, the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of American Airlines, provided more details about the FAA’s planned actions at ORD.
According to the executives who signed the memo, on March 3, the FAA has brought together airlines for a ‘schedule reduction meeting’ at its offices in Washington, DC, “to proactively address and reduce the overscheduling at ORD, driven by United [Airlines].”
Airlines’ executives will continue discussing the flight limits at ORD on March 4, with the regulator providing stakeholders an opportunity to submit any written information by March 11.
Nevertheless, Seymour and Pieper pointed out that this summer ORD has more scheduled flights than it can handle, “a trajectory that puts ORD on track for significant delays this summer,” putting the airport in a similar position to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in summer 2025.
In June 2025, in response to air traffic control (ATC) staffing shortages, the now-completed runway construction work, and the resulting cascading delays, the FAA limited hourly operations at EWR to 72 movements – 36 arrivals and 36 departures – until at least October 24, 2026.
“We commend Secretary Sean Duffy, Administrator Bryan Bedford, and the FAA for stepping in early to address operational integrity of the airfield and airspace at ORD.”
The two executives admitted that while American Airlines was slow to rebuild its network at ORD following the pandemic, placing capacity “where demand returned fastest,” the airline use-and-lease agreement (AULA) at ORD, which allocated “gates based on how much flying each airline operates in the previous year,” is the context for why United Airlines decided “to dump capacity into its summer schedule, with the hopes of preventing American [Airlines] from gaining the gates.”
Seymour and Pieper added that since the airline was slower to rebuild at ORD, it lost a few gates when United Airlines asked the Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) to reallocate gates.
While American Airlines sued in response in May 2025, it withdrew its lawsuit in July 2025.
Rytis Beresnevicius
Going beyond the FAA’s limits
According to American Airlines’ executives, with the airline resuming “deliberate and sustainable” growth this summer season, United Airlines’ response was that it would “draw a line in the sand” and “add as many flights as are required,” as said by its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Scott Kirby, during the Q4 2025 earnings call, to prevent American Airlines from gaining any gates during the next reallocation process.
“They proceeded to add approximately 130 additional daily flights this summer, bringing them to a 34% increase year-over-year – well over their pre-COVID flying.”
Seymour and Pieper concluded that this was not “meaningful growth,” but rather a “ploy to overschedule the airport to manipulate a provision which was meant to promote competition, seemingly without regard for ORD customers, team members, or airport partners.”
“We are grateful for the FAA taking proactive steps to protect the flying public, who count on ORD to run reliably. Without intervention, United’s reckless scheduling will lead to challenging conditions at ORD this summer: long taxi times, extensive tarmac delays, missed customer connections, disrupted crew sequences, and cascading disruptions across the system.”
In its notice about the meeting with airlines, the FAA said that, currently, “published schedules exceed 3,080 daily operations on peak days,” with ORD’s limit at around 2,800 daily flights. In summer 2025, daily operations peaked at around 2,680.
“Presently, ORD facilitates approximately 100 hourly departures and arrivals, respectively, resulting in approximately 2,800 total daily operations. This level of operations is manageable given the current infrastructure and staffing resources available at ORD.”
The FAA determined that the meeting “is necessary to meet a serious transportation need or to achieve an important public benefit, both of which include preserving competition, passenger throughput, and access to the airport as much as possible.”
Cirium’s Diio Mi shows that during the three calendar summer months in 2026, ORD will have more than 10,000 weekly one-way departures for the first time ever in its history, with American Airlines and United Airlines alone accounting for an average of 3,619 and 5,308 weekly departures per month during the period.
Rytis Beresnevicius
