American Airlines is due to start operating ORD-ICN April 2017. Korean operates 7 times a week and Asiana operates 5 times a week. Is there room for AA to compete? Seems like an odd route but I guess there is no One World representation on ORD-ICN. Your thoughts?

It Will be hard to compete against the excellent KE... If I had to choose between AA and KE, that would be a no brainer: KE is far superior.
As to OZ, I've never flown them.

However, there may be room for AA as Chicago and Seoul are 2 major cities.
Why do you say it is an odd route?

leo777 wrote:

American Airlines is due to start operating ORD-ICN April 2017. Korean operates 7 times a week and Asiana operates 5 times a week. Is there room for AA to compete? Seems like an odd route but I guess there is no One World representation on ORD-ICN. Your thoughts?

If true it's an interesting addition. AA has presumably seen the results of DFW-ICN and given no UA presence on ORD-ICN has concluded this is a good route to launch. To be honest I'd have thought they would have done LAX-ICN first but they obviously have a 787 to allocate at ORD and this is where it's going.

Do you have a source for this information?

Sydscott wrote:

To be honest I'd have thought they would have done LAX-ICN first

I would've too.... hence being rather curious at to the source of this claim.

I know they connect a lot of people on a daily basis from AA at ord to KE but they said the same thing when they started DFW-ICN how could they go against KE and they did and KE reduced service

LAX772LR wrote:

Sydscott wrote:

To be honest I'd have thought they would have done LAX-ICN first

I would've too.... hence being rather curious at to the source of this claim.

I'm surprised too, but I'm not at the same time. LAX-ICN is very competitive with multiple daily A380s. KE and OZ have an iron grip on the market, TG just exited and SQ is coming in. Other than the OW benefits, there's not much AA can offer.

Is AA even daily year round in ORDNRT? I highly doubt ICN is in the cards.

The AA operation at ORD is impressive. Even though it is still smaller than UA's, AA has made itself a good hub with nice terminals and lounges. The plethora of connections it will offer at ORD could fill the flight. The only question is whether the flight will me profitable or not.


In addition, I think it was about time AA spiced up the ORD hub. It's been a while since AA did anything at ORD other than the addition of the E175 jets.

MaverickM11 wrote:

Is AA even daily year round in ORDNRT? I highly doubt ICN is in the cards.

It looks like other than the depths of winter and Thanksgiving/Christmas weeks, AA is now generally back to daily on ORD-NRT with the switch to the 787.

That said, I share others' skepticism about ORD-ICN. It is very hard to imagine AA going into a market like that, particularly before LAX-ICN - I will believe it when I see it.

I am pleasantly surprised to see AA go outside of their comfort zone on this, nice going AA. ORD-ICN should be a huge market and the OneWorld O&D out of Chicago should be significant. Add in all of AA's connections at ORD and I think they could make this work with a 787.

I was always surprised that UA didn't launch this route. UA doesn't even codeshare with Asiana on this route, I can't even find Asiana's flights on UA's website when booking. But, I would assume that having Star Alliance feed on both ends and the fact that Star is bigger than OneWorld at ORD would give UA a leg up over AA on this route.

Source: https://us.flyasiana.com/C/en/homepage. ... nuType=CMS

AA is switching the DFW-ICN service to a 789 in March '17,
so they'll have spare 77E's to start this ORD-ICN service,
or they could go 788 on that route

As someone has said above, Korean and Asiana product if much better than AA, but if you have a corporate contract with AA or you are a frequent traveller of AA or Oneworld, then AA is a very good option, Chicago and Seoul are very big cities and ORD is a big transfer hub for AA, so it's not that crazy to start the route for AA.

it is strange for UA to leave this market totally for other airlines, maybe after AA move we will see UA responding with a cooperation with KE on the route, that will be the logical step to keep USA customers with UA and not moving to AA, even if the leg is operated by KE.

I think AA could make it work with a B787, I see this market easier than trying LAX-ICN.

An official source would go a long way toward answering a lot of the questions on this thread. Like "Is AA actually starting ORD-ICN?"

migair54 wrote:

maybe after AA move we will see UA responding with a cooperation with KE on the route, that will be the logical step to keep USA customers with UA and not moving to AA

There is no need for UA to do anything involving KE, since fellow Star partner OZ already flies the route.

migair54 wrote:

it is strange for UA to leave this market totally for other airlines, maybe after AA move we will see UA responding with a cooperation with KE on the route, that will be the logical step to keep USA customers with UA and not moving to AA, even if the leg is operated by KE.

Delta and KE haven't been the friendliest but KE is still SkyTeam. I wouldn't expect cooperation with UA on ORD-ICN.

Sightseer wrote:

There is no need for UA to do anything involving KE, since fellow Star partner OZ already flies the route.

I agree, UA has no reason to partner with KE, but why are OZ and UA not even codesharing on this route? Could UA left it out of the codeshare agreement because they wanted to start it?

leo777 wrote:

American Airlines is due to start operating ORD-ICN April 2017. Korean operates 7 times a week and Asiana operates 5 times a week. Is there room for AA to compete? Seems like an odd route but I guess there is no One World representation on ORD-ICN. Your thoughts?

I'll believe it when I see a press release. I expected LAX-ICN and hell, even ORD-HKG, before ORD-ICN. I'd love to hear your source as I've heard no indication of this route starting next year.

I doubt AA will launch any more routes to ICN anytime soon, especially now that LAX-ICN will get SQ.

As for ORD, AA hasn't launched a transpac route from there since 2010, and has been reducing capacity since then.

United787 wrote:

Sightseer wrote:

There is no need for UA to do anything involving KE, since fellow Star partner OZ already flies the route.

I agree, UA has no reason to partner with KE, but why are OZ and UA not even codesharing on this route? Could UA left it out of the codeshare agreement because they wanted to start it?

My mistake, I wanted to say OZ, but I said KE.

hoons90 wrote:

I doubt AA will launch any more routes to ICN anytime soon, especially now that LAX-ICN will get SQ.

As for ORD, AA hasn't launched a transpac route from there since 2010, and has been reducing capacity since then.

LAX-ICN is too busy market to start now, I don't think it will be easy at all for them to start. Attracting traffic from East coast via ORD will be a better option. With DFW and ORD they have the most of the country well covered.

They have not launched any transpac since 2010 but that does not mean that they can't do, I think it's time to do now, maybe before they didn't do because they did not have a right plane for the flight.

Not happening. If anything, it will be a codeshare. Please post a link to information like this otherwise note it as a rumor.

A bit on the side of the topic itself, but I notice the great circle track goes through North Korean airspace. I know the routing depends on numerous factors, i.e.wind, weather forecast, en-route charges and so on, but will a US airline (doesn't really matter which one in this context) be allowed to overfly North Korea? I supppose KE and OZ both are banned and also very unwilling to pay Kim&co en-route fees, but has anyone on the forum got an idea about US or western airlines flying over North Korea?

willyknut wrote:

A bit on the side of the topic itself, but I notice the great circle track goes through North Korean airspace. I know the routing depends on numerous factors, i.e.wind, weather forecast, en-route charges and so on, but will a US airline (doesn't really matter which one in this context) be allowed to overfly North Korea? I supppose KE and OZ both are banned and also very unwilling to pay Kim&co en-route fees, but has anyone on the forum got an idea about US or western airlines flying over North Korea?

Of course not. All routings go over Japan or Russia and avoid Best Korea. Even the departure and arrival routings from ICN keep aircraft away from North Korea.

Nothing out there on this. Nothing on Jetnet.

......still waiting on that source.

Google, RoutesOnline, ATW, FlyerTalk are all turning up nothing.

This seems to be a rumor at best, a hoax at worst.

LAX772LR wrote:

......still waiting on that source.

Google, RoutesOnline, ATW, FlyerTalk are all turning up nothing.

This seems to be a rumor at best, a hoax at worst.

Seems to be case of Wiki vandalism:



I guess the mods can delete this thread now...

hoons90 wrote:

LAX772LR wrote:

......still waiting on that source.

Google, RoutesOnline, ATW, FlyerTalk are all turning up nothing.

This seems to be a rumor at best, a hoax at worst.

Seems to be case of Wiki vandalism:



I guess the mods can delete this thread now...

Yep. Please lock and delete this thread or at least change the title to *RUMOR*. Zero data or proof to substantiate the claim.

Confirmed or not, I don't see this route doing very well, especially with the competition from KE and OZ. I agree that LAX-ICN would make more sense, but like ORD, lots of competition.

Threads like this are why a.net needs reddit-style downvoting capabilities.

This appears to be nothing more than a rumor without any verifiable source. This thread will be locked pending an official announcement by AA.