It was widely reported last year in both the Chicago and aviation press that the city initiated a review of gate allocation at the request of United Airlines. It may be a stretch to call it a backroom deal, but reallocation was initiated because UA took action. Presumably SK had little to do with this and it was driven by whomever is running UA ORD ops on a day to day basis.

For whatever reason, AA thought that the gate reallocation process would be placed on hold during terminal construction. They claim they believed that so strongly that it's why they sued. Obviously the judge thought differently. Whether they believed all that because they're incompetent or they were lied to? I doubt anyone on APC knows. My personal unfounded conspiracy theory is the Chicago Department of Aviation did what it did to sell more Jet A at the widly inflated prices they charge. If you've been there in the last year, you know.

Ironically, it probably mattered little between the FAA order and the new results of the reallocation process: https://www.chicagobusiness.com/tran...ited-american/

Looks like AA will get back 3 of the 4 gates they lost so now G will mostly be AA RJs again. Maybe they can take the carpet off the American Eagle logo.