AMERICAN SUES CHICAGO OVER GATE ACCESS AT O’HARE
June 23, 2025
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On May 2, 2025, American filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago (the “City”) alleging that preliminary gate redeterminations at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (“O’Hare”) violated the City’s contractual obligations with American. Since O’Hare serves as a hub for both American and United, the City executed an Airline Use and Lease Agreement (the “Agreement”) with American, United, and other carriers which included provisions governing initial gate assignments and procedures for redetermining gates. At United’s request, the City recently commenced a gate redetermination which American considered premature under the contractual terms of the Agreement and thus it filed to enjoin the City’s purported contractual breach. Pursuant to the Agreement, a redetermination of gate access is largely based on flight statistics for each airline from the “immediately preceding calendar year” such that those operating at full capacity in a prior year are more likely to be awarded gate assignments during redetermination. If the City were to proceed as planned with the gate redetermination rather than several years from now as American requests, United will receive approximately five more gates at O’Hare while American will lose some four gates. Since several gates allocated to American were unavailable last year due to construction at O’Hare, flight statistics for American in the preceding year would show underutilized capacity if gate redeterminations were finalized as proposed by the City. American claims that the Agreement requires the next gate determination to occur no earlier than 2027 with flight statistics from calendar year 2026 at which time American could fully utilize allocated gates absent construction-related interruptions. The turf war over access underscores tensions between two major U.S. air carriers with United now responding that its Fort Worth-based competitor failed to adequately invest in airport infrastructure at O’Hare when compared United’s own sizable investments. Moreover, United argues that American’s current gate access was underutilized by choice such that reallocation of gates to United and other carriers would better serve passengers traveling to and from Chicago.
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