The fine print said AA paid for their five gates and not the city. Part of an attempt to regain gates (2) the DOJ made AA give up in the 2013 merger settlement.

Gents, that was exactly the feedback I was looking for. Thanks!

Right. They had to give them up for the merger, and now they want them back. Sorry. It is what it is. United getting 5 gates just evens the score, regardless who pays for them. I’m sure United would by most of American’s gates in ORD, LAX, SFO, DEN, IAD, IAH and EWR.

I see what you did there. Good one.

Any chance ORD is so senior at AA that it might become junior shortly? I.E., is it so top heavy that it will be hit first and hardest when retirements start happening in earnest in a few years?


That does happen... Witness LAX over the last couple of years.
Whether it will or not is more difficult to predict, ie; what is the backlog of people who would rather commute to ORD than to wherever they are commuting to now?

There are however signs that it may be beginning to happen at ORD.

Bid what you want. Take the first class offered. If that is AA then by the time UAL calls you'll have a decent idea what to do.

ORD doesn’t have nearly the retirements of some of the other bases. Eventually, in 5 or 6 years a ton of guys will start falling off of the top. This last bid run was very good for getting new people into ORD, but prior to that it had been 2 years since any significant numbers were awarded ORD. I can’t begin to speculate if future bids will see more movement into here.

As it sits now, seemingly the worst case scenario would be a couple of years to get ORD and it may turn out better than that. They only sure thing here is that if the winters don’t kill you, the taxes will make you wish it had.

What’s being left out here is the complete closure of the 767 pilot base. That wasn’t planned. Add that to it and FOS of the pilots you had two huge events causing ORD stagnation and backwards movement. Further the 777 closure announcement happened.

With that as soon as the 767 stopped closing we saw movement again into ord like they did before the FOS where pilots got ORD relatively quickly. This last bid has guys not off probation into ORD. It in my opinion only can get better and not worse. Maybe not the LUS retirements but many people eventually move away from ORD as kids graduate etc. Happens more and more it seems which then also brings movement.

People don’t want to pay IL taxes after the kids leave?

Haha right. Or even Wisconsin and MN. Spoken with a lot once kids are gone they are headed for a move. ORD I think will see movement. Just had bad luck with FOS, 767 base closure and 777 (although not finalized yet).