For being a major 500+ flight hub, AA seems to be very RJ heavy and it lacks mainline on a lot of routes out of ORD compared to UA, even in markets where you’d think they’d be able to make 1-2 mainline frequencies work.

A specific example, despite the growth in the market, AA BNA-ORD only sees mainline on occasion. You’d think they’d be able to make a daily A319 work here like UA does.

Does anyone have specific RJ/mainline % of AA’s ORD operation? I’m curious to know.

BNAMealer wrote:

For being a major 500+ flight hub, AA seems to be very RJ heavy and it lacks mainline on a lot of routes out of ORD compared to UA, even in markets where you’d think they’d be able to make 1-2 mainline frequencies work.

A specific example, despite the growth in the market, AA BNA-ORD only sees mainline on occasion. You’d think they’d be able to make a daily A319 work here like UA does.

Does anyone have specific RJ/mainline % of AA’s ORD operation? I’m curious to know.

The truth is they've actually added a lot of mainline over the past few years as well as larger RJ's. Also, there are several routes where they use more mainline than UA and larger RJ's as well. Of course I wish they added even more but there has been significant progress. Personally I think the E170/5 experience is as good and/or better than mainline.

BNAMealer wrote:

For being a major 500+ flight hub, AA seems to be very RJ heavy and it lacks mainline on a lot of routes out of ORD compared to UA, even in markets where you’d think they’d be able to make 1-2 mainline frequencies work.

A specific example, despite the growth in the market, AA BNA-ORD only sees mainline on occasion. You’d think they’d be able to make a daily A319 work here like UA does.

Does anyone have specific RJ/mainline % of AA’s ORD operation? I’m curious to know.

You get your wish, as of next Monday you get a 319 (AA783) between ORD-BNA. As mentioned above, the breakdown between mainline and RJ is in the hub count.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

FSDan did a great thread on this overall topic:
AA at ORD: 40% mainline
viewtopic.php?t=1420609

UA at ORD: 43.6% mainline
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1420611

I'm going out on a limb here (so please don't rip me if my logic is flawed) but I think it's a combination of geography and demographics. Geographically speaking, Chicago is within 2.5 hours flying time of allot of US & Canadian population centers. Perfectly acceptable for RJ flying and even more so on 170/75s. The demographics come in with ORD being one of the top business O&D markets. You can't offer dawn to dusk frequency and be willing to fly 2/3 empty A320s at 2pm on a Wednesday.... profitably.

Landing fees at MDW=$7 and ORD=$14. When Southwest was given MDW over Airtran the shrinkage started. Both United and AA have shrunk tremendously since then.

Excellent point Airbuser. Having a 400lb gorilla down the road is definitely a factor.

Italianflyer wrote:

I'm going out on a limb here (so please don't rip me if my logic is flawed) but I think it's a combination of geography and demographics. Geographically speaking, Chicago is within 2.5 hours flying time of allot of US & Canadian population centers. Perfectly acceptable for RJ flying and even more so on 170/75s. The demographics come in with ORD being one of the top business O&D markets. You can't offer dawn to dusk frequency and be willing to fly 2/3 empty A320s at 2pm on a Wednesday.... profitably.

Exactly. Plus, the ORD hub is a major connecting point for much of the midwest, and for connecting passengers, 10 flights a day on e145s and very short layovers are much better than 4 flights a day and long layovers, especially since most connecters are coming from places like MSP, MCI, STL, IND, BNA, ect that are very short flights.

Recall ORD was a long standing S80 hub that was quickly replaced by new build 738s in 2009-2010. The AE fleet remained ERJ and then transitioned to E170 within the last few years as well.

One of the bigger hub transitions for AA at ORD was replacing a lot of the TATL ops with 788 from the former 763 (now most of the 763 is based in PHL as a result.) AA at ORD was also one of the first to loose the 757 in large numbers as well.

chepos wrote:

BNAMealer wrote:

For being a major 500+ flight hub, AA seems to be very RJ heavy and it lacks mainline on a lot of routes out of ORD compared to UA, even in markets where you’d think they’d be able to make 1-2 mainline frequencies work.

A specific example, despite the growth in the market, AA BNA-ORD only sees mainline on occasion. You’d think they’d be able to make a daily A319 work here like UA does.

Does anyone have specific RJ/mainline % of AA’s ORD operation? I’m curious to know.

You get your wish, as of next Monday you get a 319 (AA783) between ORD-BNA. As mentioned above, the breakdown between mainline and RJ is in the hub count.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That only lasts until mid-December, after which it goes back to all CR7/E145. Not very competitive IMO against UA’s 737/A319/E75 and WN’s 737’s if you ask me.

JAMBOJET wrote:

FSDan did a great thread on this overall topic:
AA at ORD: 40% mainline
UA at ORD: 43.6% mainline

I checked the BTS stats for
April 2019 for departures from the airport ORD as a whole (103 seats on average)
43.4% mainline
53.6% regional
1.8% cargo
1.2% small jets (under 20 seats)

April 2019 for departures from the airport MDW as a whole (147 seats on average)
94.9% mainline
4.3% regional
0.0% cargo
0.7% small jets (under 30 seats)

Average Major Airport seats is (130.5 seats on average per takeoff)
Average Minor Airport seats is (64.3 seats on average per takeoff)

http://www.gcmap.com/map?P=37.517534N,92.173096W-ATL/LAX/ORD/DFW/DEN/JFK/SFO/SEA/LAS%0d%0a37.517534N,92.173096W-MCO/EWR/CLT/PHX/IAH/MIA/BOS/MSP%0d%0a37.517534N,92.173096W-FLL/DTW/PHL/LGA/BWI/SLC/SAN/IAD%0d%0a37.517534N,92.173096W-DCA/MDW/TPA/PDX%0d%0a&MS=wls&MR=300&MX=720x360&PM=*
One consideration is the number of miles a major airport is from the population center of the country (37°31'03.1"N 92°10'23.2"W). An airport theoretically located at the population center of the country would be able to reach every major airport except HNL in 1672 miles, which is well within the range of regional jet.

377 MDW
382 ORD (#3)
421 DFW (#4)
511 ATL (#1)
511 MSP
550 IAH
569 DTW
645 CLT
694 DEN
806 IAD
828 DCA
849 BWI
864 TPA
888 MCO
928 PHL
990 EWR
1,006 LGA
1,010 JFK
1,058 FLL
1,067 MIA
1,085 SLC
1,151 PHX
1,169 BOS
1,275 LAS
1,450 SAN
1,490 LAX
1,651 SFO
1,661 PDX
1,672 SEA
4,037 HNL

Given that ORD and MDW are the closest major airports to the population center, you could still reach every major airport from ORD in 1846 miles.

zero ORD
15 MDW
235 DTW
334 MSP
588 IAD
599 CLT
606 ATL
612 DCA
621 BWI
678 PHL
719 EWR
733 LGA
740 JFK
801 DFW
867 BOS
888 DEN
925 IAH
1005 MCO
1011 TPA
1182 FLL
1197 MIA
1250 SLC
1440 PHX
1514 LAS
1721 SEA
1723 SAN
1739 PDX
1744 LAX
1846 SFO
4243 HNL

LAXdude1023 wrote:

Its not always bad either. I purposely seek out the E175 as opposed to mainline aircraft. The E145 and CRJ-200 is a completely different story.

Haha, I thought I was the only one doing that! E175's are my second favorite narrow-body, only recently supplanted by the A220.

In the past few years, I've started to cross-shop AA and UA on domestic routes for this very reason: I can't stand UA's 737 configuration..legroom so tight its almost unbearable, even on a jump to NYC or BNA. A320s will always get the nod over a 737 for me, but E175's are my #1, for even money or close.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

If, as seems to be the case, ORD has significantly fewer pax per flight on average than other major airports, it suggests there is probably a substantial excess of runway capacity

Vacation destinations and primarily O&D airports have the largest number of seats per takeoff. Five of the top six are in Florida. The more urban airports demand more frequency so they fly with smaller number of seats per takeoff.

The decision to not build a new airport in San Diego in 2006 meant that SAN was forced to increase the number of seats per takeoff to make better use of their single runway. They upsized their regional jets and diminished general aviation, and military takeoffs, and Southwest increased the number of jets with 176 seats vs the older ones with 143 seats.

LAS has a real problem because their number of seats per takeoff is already very high, so there is little they can do to alleviate the problem of an overcrowded runway.

The highest numbers don't correspond to the largest percentage of widebody jets. The main international gateways, like JFK, LAX, MIA , and SFO have large numbers of widebody jets, but they also have significant numbers of regional jets. On average they end up closer to the middle.

ORD is particularly low for a top 10 airport.

Top 50 airports average seats per takeoff.
166.4 RSW
164.1 MCO (#10)
156.4 FLL
156.1 LAS (#9)
150.6 PBI
149.0 TPA
147.7 HOU
147.0 MDW
145.4 MSY
144.0 DAL
143.9 SAN ------------------
140.6 AUS
140.4 SFO (#7)
139.3 BWI
137.6 ATL (#1)
137.0 LAX (#2)
136.6 PHX
133.7 SNA
133.4 SJC
132.4 SEA (#8)
132.3 MIA
131.4 SAT
130.1 JFK (#6)
128.8 SMF
126.7 DEN (#5)
124.5 BNA
123.0 OAK
123.0 MCI
121.8 BOS
119.4 HNL
119.1 MSP
118.6 DFW (#4)
115.5 PDX
115.2 EWR
113.6 SLC
113.5 STL
111.8 CLE
111.3 RDU
110.7 DTW
108.3 CMH
107.3 IAH
106.8 LGA
105.6 CLT
103.7 PHL
102.6 ORD (#3)------------------------------------------
102.5 DCA
100.4 IAD
97.3 PIT
86.0 IND
76.9 CVG

I think part of the problem lies in that up until the US merger when AA started adding E-Jets to the fleet, they really did not have the right equipment for ORD routes, especially ORD-Northeastern US.

Take ORD-Northeastern USA. Between 1998 and 2002 or so, these routes were flown almost exclusively with F100s and S80s. After 9/11 industry downturn, the S80 became a bit too much for a lot of these routes. AA was retiring the F100s, so they essentially had no choice but to shift a large amount of flying too ERDs. AA even exited ORD-ALB/MHT/PVD/PWM/BTV. Before axing ALB, AA was flying ALB-ORD with 3-4x ERD, while UA was managing 2x A320 while also flying E170s on the route with first class. Simply not competitive.

Adding the E-Jets allowed AA to return to many of these markets, and AA recently added mainline back to routes that lost it after 2001.

I always thought the same about UA being mostly RJ flying. I remember seeing more RJ’s in UA colours than I did of Eagle colours every time I’ve been through ORD

Maybe ORD has large numbers of regional jets because they can. With 7 runways and an 8th under construction they have one more than the next leading contender (DFW with 7 runways). Then DEN, BOS, and DTW have 6 runways.

Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) has a single 12,000' runway.

PacoMartin wrote:

Maybe ORD has large numbers of regional jets because they can. With 7 runways and an 8th under construction they have one more than the next leading contender (DFW with 7 runways). Then DEN, BOS, and DTW have 6 runways.

Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) has a single 12,000' runway.

Not sure that’s relevant considering only 3-5 are used at any given time.

77H

There's more mainline than there was ten years ago. In those days, if you weren't going to one of the coasts, one of the hubs, or MSP, odds were you'd be on a regional jet, and even major points like DCA and DEN saw a mix of mainline and Eagle. As others have said, when the Fokkers were retired in 2004, AA tried to parse routes out between the MD80 and the ERJ to fill the gap - and the ERJs wound up taking over a lot more than the MD80s did.

Nowadays there's mainline to Houston, Nashville, Atlanta, New Orleans, Detroit - all cities that were mainline for years and then got downgauged to RJs for about a decade. Bigger planes have been creeping steadily back in, including the E175s, which at least offer a mainline experience. A far cry from a decade ago.

77H wrote:

Not sure that’s relevant considering only 3-5 are used at any given time.
77H

The number of regional jets may be more strongly related to how many people live nearby.

US citizens living within 500 and 750 statute miles
Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD): 500 miles (82.2 million US citizens) 750 miles (145.7 million US citizens)
Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport (ATL): 500 miles (79.5 million US citizens) 750 miles (171.1 million US citizens)
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW): 500 miles (45.8 million US citizens) 750 miles (77.8 million US citizens)
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX): 500 miles (46.0 million US citizens) 750 miles (53.3 million US citizens)
Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW): 500 miles (25.4 million US citizens) 750 miles (60.4 million US citizens)
Fort Lauderdale International Airport (FLL): 500 miles (21.5 million US citizens) 750 miles (54.7 million US citizens)

Average seats per takeoff (domestic flights).
166.4 RSW
156.4 FLL
137.6 ATL (#1)
137.0 LAX (#2)
118.6 DFW (#4)
102.6 ORD (#3)------------------------------------------

davidjohnson6 wrote:

At what point do the people of Chicago start demanding less noise and fewer flights ?

If, as seems to be the case, ORD has significantly fewer pax per flight on average than other major airports, it suggests there is probably a substantial excess of runway capacity

What does this even mean? People who live by airports will always complain about noise no matter how many flights there are. Do you think people that live by Long Beach are any happier than ORD even though they have a fraction of the number of flights?
And how would having more flights overall with smaller capacity aircraft lead to excess runway capacity?

LAXdude1023 wrote:

Its not always bad either. I purposely seek out the E175 as opposed to mainline aircraft. The E145 and CRJ-200 is a completely different story.

Genuinely curious what your rationale is for E175 > Mainline

77H wrote:

PacoMartin wrote:

Maybe ORD has large numbers of regional jets because they can. With 7 runways and an 8th under construction they have one more than the next leading contender (DFW with 7 runways). Then DEN, BOS, and DTW have 6 runways.

Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) has a single 12,000' runway.

Not sure that’s relevant considering only 3-5 are used at any given time.

77H

True, they usually use 5 runways now, 3 for arrivals and 2 for departures, however I think once they complete 9/27 C and the extension of 9/27 L they may use 6 runways.
That’s basically all they can do because the 6 runways will all be East/West while the other 2 will be Northeast/Southwest.
I believe that ORD is the only airport in the world that has the capability of having 4 simultaneous IFR arrivals. 9R, 9L, 10C and 10R.
Hopefully one of our expert ATC people can verify this.

ORDfan wrote:

LAXdude1023 wrote:

Its not always bad either. I purposely seek out the E175 as opposed to mainline aircraft. The E145 and CRJ-200 is a completely different story.

Haha, I thought I was the only one doing that! E175's are my second favorite narrow-body, only recently supplanted by the A220.

In the past few years, I've started to cross-shop AA and UA on domestic routes for this very reason: I can't stand UA's 737 configuration..legroom so tight its almost unbearable, even on a jump to NYC or BNA. A320s will always get the nod over a 737 for me, but E175's are my #1, for even money or close.

No kidding. I did ORD-BNA last Sunday on UA and I also noticed how tight the legroom was. Not that an AA mainline plane would be much better, but that was probably it for me on UA for a while.

E75’s on AA’s BNA-ORD would be good, but they seem to be content with CR7’s and E145’s for now, which is odd considering they still have a large operation at BNA.

Planeboy17 wrote:

77H wrote:

PacoMartin wrote:

Maybe ORD has large numbers of regional jets because they can. With 7 runways and an 8th under construction they have one more than the next leading contender (DFW with 7 runways). Then DEN, BOS, and DTW have 6 runways.

Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) has a single 12,000' runway.

Not sure that’s relevant considering only 3-5 are used at any given time.

77H

True, they usually use 5 runways now, 3 for arrivals and 2 for departures, however I think once they complete 9/27 C and the extension of 9/27 L they may use 6 runways.
That’s basically all they can do because the 6 runways will all be East/West while the other 2 will be Northeast/Southwest.
I believe that ORD is the only airport in the world that has the capability of having 4 simultaneous IFR arrivals. 9R, 9L, 10C and 10R.
Hopefully one of our expert ATC people can verify this.

At the moment there are no procedures to simultaneously land 4 parallel RWYs. They are looking into it but not developed yet.

airstatdfw wrote:

Planeboy17 wrote:

77H wrote:

Not sure that’s relevant considering only 3-5 are used at any given time.

77H

True, they usually use 5 runways now, 3 for arrivals and 2 for departures, however I think once they complete 9/27 C and the extension of 9/27 L they may use 6 runways.
That’s basically all they can do because the 6 runways will all be East/West while the other 2 will be Northeast/Southwest.
I believe that ORD is the only airport in the world that has the capability of having 4 simultaneous IFR arrivals. 9R, 9L, 10C and 10R.
Hopefully one of our expert ATC people can verify this.

At the moment there are no procedures to simultaneously land 4 parallel RWYs. They are looking into it but not developed yet.

Thanks for the quick response airstatdfw.

ORD is in a great hub location, is there not a point where AA is doing a good job connection all the points without dumping capacity ? AA UA WN all have huge ORD hubs. AA is able to connect all the dots and then some beyond UA/WN with the smaller RJs. This seems like a great use of RJs.

airstatdfw wrote:

Planeboy17 wrote:

77H wrote:

Not sure that’s relevant considering only 3-5 are used at any given time.

77H

True, they usually use 5 runways now, 3 for arrivals and 2 for departures, however I think once they complete 9/27 C and the extension of 9/27 L they may use 6 runways.
That’s basically all they can do because the 6 runways will all be East/West while the other 2 will be Northeast/Southwest.
I believe that ORD is the only airport in the world that has the capability of having 4 simultaneous IFR arrivals. 9R, 9L, 10C and 10R.
Hopefully one of our expert ATC people can verify this.

At the moment there are no procedures to simultaneously land 4 parallel RWYs. They are looking into it but not developed yet.

Yes and also just because you have 4 runways to land and theoretically your arrival rate would go up it also means you have to consider the gate space/ taxiway structure, demand, airspace saturation ( comes into play with MDW) and how fast the center can feed you. At A80 and C90 a lot of times the centers can’t feed you fast enough on visuals so the finals are already staying inside of 15-20 miles. So what does a fourth runway do then? Everyone turns an 8 mile final? Optimally Trips are about as good as it gets until ORD start running quads and prove that during a heavy push it’s safe and efficient in all aspects.

airzona11 wrote:

ORD is in a great hub location, is there not a point where AA is doing a good job connection all the points without dumping capacity ? AA UA WN all have huge ORD hubs. AA is able to connect all the dots and then some beyond UA/WN with the smaller RJs. This seems like a great use of RJs.

Agreed. This is probably the most important factor. Chicago has 3 hubs, and at least two of them (UA / AA) run similar hub-n-spoke models and view frequency as a competitive advantage. That means inevitably the traffic from any specific city will be split and requires smaller flights to maintain frequency.

The two other factors I'd add are:
1) there are a ton of small Midwestern cities that are large enough to need service but can't sustain mainline *and* are too far spread out to drive to a larger city. This, IMHO, is key. There are plenty of small towns on the east and west coasts, but a lot of them are within driving distance to a big city, which means you don't need much air service to them. The Midwest is far more spread out, making air service to them viable as long as you use a smaller plane.

2) as an earlier poster mentioned, ORD has enough runway capacity that you actually *can* run a bunch of RJs. That doesn't mean they waste that capacity. It means that ORD is preferred for linking all those small towns rather than wasting a slot at one of their other, more constrained hubs. For example, despite UA having a hub at EWR, many of the smaller towns in the east get routed through ORD despite often being a slight backtrack. This is because UA simply doesn't have the slots to fly a bunch of small RJs into EWR and therefore tries to aggregate those thin connection flows through ORD instead. I'm sure AA does this as well with the constraints they have in e.g. PHL.

AA uses more a321s ans 737 at ORD than I ever remember. 788s are the main widebody they use, not just to Europe but also other AA hubs (DFW, PHX, LAX) and some vacations spots certain times of the year (CUN, LAS). The RJs are mainly to small cities and some mid size cities with a lot of competition. All main/large cities get mainline.

Remember back in the 80s when UA had 400+ departures a day? A lot of them DC 10s

BNAMealer wrote:

For being a major 500+ flight hub, AA seems to be very RJ heavy and it lacks mainline on a lot of routes out of ORD compared to UA, even in markets where you’d think they’d be able to make 1-2 mainline frequencies work.

A specific example, despite the growth in the market, AA BNA-ORD only sees mainline on occasion. You’d think they’d be able to make a daily A319 work here like UA does.

Does anyone have specific RJ/mainline % of AA’s ORD operation? I’m curious to know.

It's not really that RJ heavy, considering the markets it serves.

1. Within a ~250 mile radius AA serves: BMI, CMI, MLI, PIA, SPI, CID, DSM, DBQ, ALO, MKE, MSN, ATW, GRB, CWA, LSE, RST, MSP, DTW, GRR, FNT, TVC, LAN, AZO, MQT, IND, FWA, EVV, CVG, CMH, CLE, CAK, TOL, SDF, DAY, and STL, meaning that at least 150 or so flights will have to be on RJs just based on the sheer size of the markets being served and how short the flights are. That's not even including the plethora of similar sized cities in a 350-400 mile radius that can only fill up a RJ, therefore it would be very difficult to raise the % of flights that are mainline above 50%.

2. Furthermore AA has been adding mainline in the past year, OMA/BNA-ORD has mainline, IND/MCI/PIT-ORD currently have 3 mainline flights a day, STL-ORD is nearly all mainline, e.t.c, so there is not a complete void of additional mainline service.

3. UA runs waaaay more CR2s(and 50 seaters in general) in ORD which are the worst type of RJ IMO, so UA's operation is hampered by that.
Plus UA operates RJs on ORD-LGA/DCA/ATL/CLT regularly, so neither AA or UA are immune to using RJs heavily in ORD

Midwestindy wrote:

BNAMealer wrote:

For being a major 500+ flight hub, AA seems to be very RJ heavy and it lacks mainline on a lot of routes out of ORD compared to UA, even in markets where you’d think they’d be able to make 1-2 mainline frequencies work.

A specific example, despite the growth in the market, AA BNA-ORD only sees mainline on occasion. You’d think they’d be able to make a daily A319 work here like UA does.

Does anyone have specific RJ/mainline % of AA’s ORD operation? I’m curious to know.

It's not really that RJ heavy, considering the markets it serves.

1. Within a ~250 mile radius AA serves: BMI, CMI, MLI, PIA, SPI, CID, DSM, DBQ, ALO, MKE, MSN, ATW, GRB, CWA, LSE, RST, MSP, DTW, GRR, FNT, TVC, LAN, AZO, MQT, IND, FWA, EVV, CVG, CMH, CLE, CAK, TOL, SDF, DAY, and STL, meaning that at least 150 or so flights will have to be on RJs just based on the sheer size of the markets being served and how short the flights are. That's not even including the plethora of similar sized cities in a 350-400 mile radius that can only fill up a RJ, therefore it would be very difficult to raise the % of flights that are mainline above 50%.

2. Furthermore AA has been adding mainline in the past year, OMA/BNA-ORD has mainline, IND/MCI/PIT-ORD currently have 3 mainline flights a day, STL-ORD is nearly all mainline, e.t.c, so there is not a complete void of additional mainline service.

3. UA runs waaaay more CR2s(and 50 seaters in general) in ORD which are the worst type of RJ IMO, so UA's operation is hampered by that.
Plus UA operates RJs on ORD-LGA/DCA/ATL/CLT regularly, so neither AA or UA are immune to using RJs heavily in ORD

Those are fair points, but the mainline on the likes of BNA/IND/MSY/CMH, etc, is not always consistent.
All those routes should be able to make at least an A319 work year round.

BNAMealer wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

BNAMealer wrote:

For being a major 500+ flight hub, AA seems to be very RJ heavy and it lacks mainline on a lot of routes out of ORD compared to UA, even in markets where you’d think they’d be able to make 1-2 mainline frequencies work.

A specific example, despite the growth in the market, AA BNA-ORD only sees mainline on occasion. You’d think they’d be able to make a daily A319 work here like UA does.

Does anyone have specific RJ/mainline % of AA’s ORD operation? I’m curious to know.

It's not really that RJ heavy, considering the markets it serves.

1. Within a ~250 mile radius AA serves: BMI, CMI, MLI, PIA, SPI, CID, DSM, DBQ, ALO, MKE, MSN, ATW, GRB, CWA, LSE, RST, MSP, DTW, GRR, FNT, TVC, LAN, AZO, MQT, IND, FWA, EVV, CVG, CMH, CLE, CAK, TOL, SDF, DAY, and STL, meaning that at least 150 or so flights will have to be on RJs just based on the sheer size of the markets being served and how short the flights are. That's not even including the plethora of similar sized cities in a 350-400 mile radius that can only fill up a RJ, therefore it would be very difficult to raise the % of flights that are mainline above 50%.

2. Furthermore AA has been adding mainline in the past year, OMA/BNA-ORD has mainline, IND/MCI/PIT-ORD currently have 3 mainline flights a day, STL-ORD is nearly all mainline, e.t.c, so there is not a complete void of additional mainline service.

3. UA runs waaaay more CR2s(and 50 seaters in general) in ORD which are the worst type of RJ IMO, so UA's operation is hampered by that.
Plus UA operates RJs on ORD-LGA/DCA/ATL/CLT regularly, so neither AA or UA are immune to using RJs heavily in ORD

Those are fair points, but the mainline on the likes of BNA/IND/MSY/CMH, etc, is not always consistent.
All those routes should be able to make at least an A319 work year round.

But for passengers, how much difference does a single daily mainline flight really make? It’s great if you’re lucky enough that the timing works but in any of these markets a single flight probably only has a 10 or 20 percent chance of working for any given passenger.

flight152 wrote:

airzona11 wrote:

ORD is in a great hub location, is there not a point where AA is doing a good job connection all the points without dumping capacity ? AA UA WN all have huge ORD hubs. AA is able to connect all the dots and then some beyond UA/WN with the smaller RJs. This seems like a great use of RJs.

WN flys into ORD? Need to me.

I'm sure you understand (s)he meant ORD+MDW just like I'm pretty sure you meant "News" and not "Need".

BNAMealer wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

BNAMealer wrote:

For being a major 500+ flight hub, AA seems to be very RJ heavy and it lacks mainline on a lot of routes out of ORD compared to UA, even in markets where you’d think they’d be able to make 1-2 mainline frequencies work.

A specific example, despite the growth in the market, AA BNA-ORD only sees mainline on occasion. You’d think they’d be able to make a daily A319 work here like UA does.

Does anyone have specific RJ/mainline % of AA’s ORD operation? I’m curious to know.

It's not really that RJ heavy, considering the markets it serves.

1. Within a ~250 mile radius AA serves: BMI, CMI, MLI, PIA, SPI, CID, DSM, DBQ, ALO, MKE, MSN, ATW, GRB, CWA, LSE, RST, MSP, DTW, GRR, FNT, TVC, LAN, AZO, MQT, IND, FWA, EVV, CVG, CMH, CLE, CAK, TOL, SDF, DAY, and STL, meaning that at least 150 or so flights will have to be on RJs just based on the sheer size of the markets being served and how short the flights are. That's not even including the plethora of similar sized cities in a 350-400 mile radius that can only fill up a RJ, therefore it would be very difficult to raise the % of flights that are mainline above 50%.

2. Furthermore AA has been adding mainline in the past year, OMA/BNA-ORD has mainline, IND/MCI/PIT-ORD currently have 3 mainline flights a day, STL-ORD is nearly all mainline, e.t.c, so there is not a complete void of additional mainline service.

3. UA runs waaaay more CR2s(and 50 seaters in general) in ORD which are the worst type of RJ IMO, so UA's operation is hampered by that.
Plus UA operates RJs on ORD-LGA/DCA/ATL/CLT regularly, so neither AA or UA are immune to using RJs heavily in ORD

Those are fair points, but the mainline on the likes of BNA/IND/MSY/CMH, etc, is not always consistent.
All those routes should be able to make at least an A319 work year round.

I don't know about other airports, but in the Nashville thread there are comments that AA is maxxed out on mainline at BNA due to ground handling contracts I believe. Frequency at BNA seems preferred over aircraft size.

Midwestindy wrote:

1. Within a ~250 mile radius AA serves: BMI, CMI, MLI, PIA, SPI, CID, DSM, DBQ, ALO, MKE, MSN, ATW, GRB, CWA, LSE, RST, MSP, DTW, GRR, FNT, TVC, LAN, AZO, MQT, IND, FWA, EVV, CVG, CMH, CLE, CAK, TOL, SDF, DAY, and STL, meaning that at least 150 or so flights will have to be on RJs just based on the sheer size of the markets being served and how short the flights are. That's not even including the plethora of similar sized cities in a 350-400 mile radius that can only fill up a RJ, therefore it would be very difficult to raise the % of flights that are mainline above 50%.

Midwestindy wrote:

3. UA runs waaaay more CR2s (and 50 seaters in general) in ORD which are the worst type of RJ IMO, so UA's operation is hampered by that.
Plus UA operates RJs on ORD-LGA/DCA/ATL/CLT regularly, so neither AA or UA are immune to using RJs heavily in ORD

And similar to the point you made re AA above, the markets UA is serving from ORD include a ton of small/EAS type markets like SLN, EAR, COU, CGI, CMX, EAU, UIN, MKG, PAH, CKB, LWB, SHD, and OGS, which are almost universally operated by CR2s. The huge number of small towns served from ORD by both UA and AA definitely contribute to the inflated RJ numbers, although there are still plenty of medium to large markets that see too many RJs for my liking.

GSPSPOT wrote:

What gets me about AA being so RJ-heavy at ORD is that from MKE (admittedly ridiculously close to ORD to begin with), AA is exclusively CR2, while UA mixes RJs (small and large) and mainline as large as 739s during the summer on the very same route. Where is the love, AA? Grrrrr….

UA running mainline from MKE has only been in the last year or so. It used to be exclusively all CRJ2, about 10 of them.
I believe AA has actually upgraded some of their MKE flights to 70 seaters.

JAMBOJET wrote:

FSDan did a great thread on this overall topic:
AA at ORD: 40% mainline
viewtopic.php?t=1420609

UA at ORD: 43.6% mainline
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1420611

These are relevant stats but I prefer a bit of a modified metric: What percentage non-hub flights are mainline? As a reference, DL in LGA is heavy on hub flying, especially ATL. Almost everything else non-hub, non-Florida is regional.

Another reference for comparison is seats per departure. At ORD AA is at 104, and UA is at 101.

GSPSPOT wrote:

What gets me about AA being so RJ-heavy at ORD is that from MKE (admittedly ridiculously close to ORD to begin with), AA is exclusively CR2, while UA mixes RJs (small and large) and mainline as large as 739s during the summer on the very same route. Where is the love, AA? Grrrrr….

That’s not true with AA running exclusive CR2s to ORD. Skywest and Envoy have ran 70s in and out of MKE to ORD. The only CR2s AA runs out of MKE will probably be to DCA as that is the main CR2 base for AA (PSA).


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77H wrote:

PacoMartin wrote:

Maybe ORD has large numbers of regional jets because they can. With 7 runways and an 8th under construction they have one more than the next leading contender (DFW with 7 runways). Then DEN, BOS, and DTW have 6 runways.

Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) has a single 12,000' runway.

Not sure that’s relevant considering only 3-5 are used at any given time.

77H

ORD is generally using 6 runways; widebodies taking off and landing on the near south runways, narrowbodies taking off and landing on the northern 2 runways, and the far southern runway, all depending on time of day and amount of arrivals. The diagonal runway next to Mannheim Rd is almost exclusively used for narrowbody takeoffs, although I did see an AA 787-8 take off from it once.

They might be using the other diagonal too, but I can't see that from the rideshare lot.