Delta Air Lines will add its first daily nonstop service from O’Hare to Los Angeles International Airport next summer.
The Atlanta-based airline is the third-largest carrier at O’Hare, behind United and American airlines, although it flies just a fraction of their schedules.
The addition of Chicago service to LAX coincides with the return of Delta’s service from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, where it will compete with United and Cathay Pacific, for the first time since 1995.
“Launching service to Hong Kong and Chicago from LAX strengthens our presence in two of the world’s most dynamic markets,” Paul Baldoni, Delta’s senior vice president of network planning, said in a statement.
“Delta’s new service between LAX and Chicago O’Hare connects two of the nation’s most influential cities, each a hub for commerce, culture and travel,” the airline said.
Delta will offer three flights a day between Chicago and Los Angeles. United has up to 11 flights a day, depending on the day of week. American offers up to 10 daily flights to LAX.
“Two’s company; three’s a party,” says travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research. “It’s a rational move by Delta. It’s a modest number of flights.
“Delta has a reasonable chance to succeed. It’s going to be tough for Delta to overcome the long-standing market strengths United and American have.”
Discount carriers Frontier and Spirit also fly from O’Hare to LAX.
The move signals increased competition, and potentially lower fares, for Chicago travelers. It also underscores the importance of hub-and-spoke networks across the airline industry, which favors O'Hare, the nation's second-busiest airport.
Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional airlines such as Delta, United and American have had an advantage over discount carriers. The traditional carriers are flying fewer, larger aircraft from hub cities like Chicago, which gives the ability to spread costs over more seats, allowing them to compete more aggressively on price for leisure travelers while also having more room for business-class seating that attracts high-end fliers.
International travel, which is more lucrative than domestic flying, also has become more important to the big carriers.
“The Chicago Department of Aviation is pleased to welcome Delta's new service to Los Angeles International Airport, one of O'Hare's most in-demand destinations for both business and leisure travel, as well as a key gateway to Asia and the Pacific,” the city said in a statement.
Historically, Delta has shown little interest in expansion in a fortress hub for two competitors. It also operates flights at Midway Airport, which is dominated by Southwest. But Delta is a big player in corporate travel, and Chicago is a key corporate market. Its move to add service at O’Hare coincides with sharp increases in flying by both United and American.
It also comes at a time when the Department of Aviation is enforcing new rules that allocate gates needed to load and unload passengers based on how much the carriers are flying. In a pending reallocation process, Delta will have seven gates in Terminal 5, down from 10 gates previously.
With the addition of Los Angeles, starting next June, Delta will be serving nine airports in eight cities from O’Hare, the same amount it had before the pandemic. The mix has changed a bit, however, with Delta dropping Cincinnati and Raleigh-Durham in favor of Boston and Los Angeles, according to schedules from aviation analytics provider Cirium.