United adds 3 new Chicago routes to boost connectivity at O'Hare hub

United Airlines seems like it's serious about rebuilding domestic connectivity from key hubs.

The Chicago-based airline showed its hometown some love over the weekend by adding three new routes from the city's O'Hare International Airport (ORD), as first seen in Cirium schedules and later confirmed by a carrier spokesperson.

The three new routes offer service from ORD to Billings, Montana; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Ontario, California.

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Daily flights to Billings take off May 22 and will operate seasonally through Oct. 25. United Express partner SkyWest Airlines will deploy an Embraer E175 regional jet on the route. SkyWest will also operate the new Halifax route using an Embraer E175. This flight will commence May 24 and will operate exclusively on Saturdays through September.

Finally, year-round daily flights to Ontario will launch May 22 on board a mainline 166-seat Boeing 737-800.

Of the three "new" routes, the one that is truly new is service from Chicago to Ontario. (The other two routes are technically resumptions since they were both operated in 2019 before the pandemic started.)

Suffice it to say, Ontario International Airport (ONT) officials are excited about the new nonstop flight to O'Hare, as no other airline operates flights from Ontario to ORD yet. Southwest Airlines connects ONT with its operating base at Chicago's Midway International Airport (MDW), but United's new nonstop will offer flyers hundreds of domestic and international connections beyond the Windy City.

"We are thrilled that United has chosen to add service from Ontario to its home base in Chicago, which will become our airport's 27th nonstop destination. United's O'Hare service will enable Ontario passengers to travel nearly anywhere across the globe via one of the world's busiest airports. Providing more options to reach more destinations is what we're all about," said Alan D. Wapner, president of the Ontario International Airport Authority Board of Airport Commissioners, in a statement.

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Interestingly, American Airlines also operates a hub at ORD, and it tried flying from O'Hare to Ontario back in 2021. Those flights have since been canceled, so it'll be interesting to see how United's new nonstop flight fares.

Meanwhile, American just announced in December that it, too, would commence service from Chicago to Halifax. According to Cirium, American has been flying from Chicago to Billings since 2021, so the new United flight will also increase competition on that route.

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Whether United's move escalates into a turf war might be up for debate, but the increased competition will certainly benefit passengers.

All the new flights also come as the airline has been focused in recent months on rebuilding domestic connectivity. Since the pandemic started, United has exited a whopping 41 U.S. cities and slashed a slew of U.S. routes, according to data from aviation consulting firm Ailevon Pacific.

Andrew Nocella, United's chief commercial officer, just told investors on its fourth-quarter earnings call that the bleeding may be ending. Nocella says reworking schedules to allow more connections in Chicago, Denver and Houston is now a priority.

"Our hubs are fantastic, but they lack the same level of connectivity that we see at some of our larger [other airline] competitor hubs. And so we're going to be able to close that gap materially in 2025, which I think is going to be really good for our relative RASM results as we go forward," said Nocella, using airline vernacular for "revenue per available seat mile" — a common industry measure of financial performance.

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