Here’s how Boeing delivery delays are hitting Chicago ahead of busy summer travel season

Boeing manufacturing problems are trickling down to Chicago and O’Hare International Airport, as the city’s largest airport prepares for the busy summer travel season.

Southwest Airlines is slashing the number of flights it will offer out of O’Hare by 33% this summer, according to data from aviation firm Cirium, as it deals with delays getting planes from Boeing and weak financial results. Boeing delays also caused American Airlines to suspend a flight from O’Hare to Paris, and prompted United Airlines to offer pilots voluntary time off in May and June. 

O’Hare will ultimately have more scheduled flights from May to August than it did last year, according to Cirium, including from the airport’s two main carriers, American and United.

But the effects of the Boeing delays are one more hurdle for O’Hare, which, Cirium data shows, is set to lag pre-pandemic traffic again this summer.

Boeing challenges have rippled across some airlines’ networks nationwide, but for travelers looking to get away over the summer, the schedule cuts aren’t likely to increase airfares across the board, said Katy Nastro, spokesperson for flight booking site Going. In fact, ticket prices aren’t likely to hit the highs seen in summer 2022, when travelers were looking to get back out after the pandemic shutdowns, she said.

But those who fly on the affected routes will feel the pinch of having fewer flights to choose from, she said. And many of the effects of Boeing’s production delays could be felt by travelers in the second half of the year, after the busy season, she said. For example, American Airlines is suspending several international routes in the fall and winter, with some expected to resume in 2025.

“It is going to be more of a targeted hit,” she said.

Boeing has faced increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers, in particular since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, leaving a gaping hole in the plane. The blowout halted progress that Boeing seemed to be making while recovering from two deadly crashes of Max jets in 2018 and 2019.

The carrier has struggled with slower production in the months since, which means fewer planes for its airline customers. The company’s European competitor, Airbus, also has a backlog of plane orders.

At a March investor conference, Boeing chief financial officer Brian West said the company had put customers in a “tight spot” and was “in regular, very transparent communication” with them.

“Ultimately, our job is to make sure that we can execute on behalf of our customers in a way that’s more predictable, more dependable, with the highest quality in mind,” he said. “And we’re going to do that one airplane at a time and our customers are hanging with us and we’re appreciative of that.”

Southwest executives, during an earnings call with analysts last month, said the carrier would limit hiring, ask employees to take time off and change flight schedules. The carrier plans to stop flying to four airports and trim flights in Atlanta, in addition to O’Hare. Southwest opened a smaller operation at O’Hare in 2021, supplementing its main Chicago service out of Midway.

This summer the carrier is also planning fewer flights out of Midway — where the airline dominates — but the cuts are significantly less than at O’Hare: about 3%.

Southwest spokesperson Chris Perry said Southwest still has plans to one day grow at O’Hare, but he couldn’t provide a timeline until the plane delivery schedule is sorted out. All changes to the carrier’s schedules nationwide “revolve around fleet constraints and meeting customer demand,” he said in an email.

American Airlines said it will be trimming service on 12 long-haul routes across its network, including cutting the number of daily flights on some routes or suspending service for the winter, and boosting service on four international routes. In Chicago, the trims include the route from O’Hare to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, which will be suspended from Sept. 3 through the summer of 2025.

American said the changes were because of delays in receiving Boeing 787s.

“We’ll be proactively reaching out to impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements,” the carrier said in a statement.

But even as it cuts back on an international flight out of O’Hare, American is planning to grow in Chicago this summer. The growth marks a change from 2023, when American was pulling back at O’Hare.

Vasu Raja, American Airlines’ chief commercial officer, said O’Hare can provide connectivity to places like the Upper Midwest, as the carrier is able to use more of its smaller, regional jets.

“As those (regional jets) are coming back, we get to go do in Chicago (what) we haven’t been able to do in a long time,” he said during a first-quarter earnings call with analysts. “Is put connectivity into Chicago from places like the Upper Midwest that are either unique to Chicago or can be served more efficiently over Chicago.”

United, too, has said it is feeling the effects of the Boeing delivery delays. The airline has asked some pilots to volunteer to take time off in May and June.

But that hasn’t translated to broad cutbacks at O’Hare this summer. And, in a statement, United said it would be offering a new summer seasonal route to Athens from Chicago.

“While other carriers are shrinking their operation at O’Hare, United’s footprint at our hometown hub continues to grow as we offer more flights to more destinations than any other airline at the airport,” the carrier said.

Industry analyst Robert Mann said United is among the carriers most affected by Boeing delivery delays, but that’s unlikely to affect the airline’s flying out of O’Hare because United has such a large presence at the airport.

The schedule changes come as O’Hare has yet to return to pre-pandemic service levels. This summer, airlines have scheduled nearly 6% less space on flights out of the airport than they did in 2019, and 17% fewer flights.

That stands in contrast to Midway, where passenger traffic last year surpassed 2019, and where airlines are scheduling more capacity this summer than before the pandemic on a similar number of flights.

The Chicago Department of Aviation touted Chicago’s “robust aviation market,” and highlighted O’Hare’s ranking as the most connected domestic large hub airport in 2023 by travel firm OAG. The department listed three new international routes out of O’Hare this summer, and pointed out that United has scheduled slightly more capacity for the month of August than it did before the pandemic.

“The CDA is seeing (capacity) moving closer to full recovery to pre-pandemic levels,” the agency said in a statement.

The Boeing delivery delays come at a difficult time, just as service at O’Hare is ready to pick up, said Joseph Schwieterman, director of DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development. The effects on Southwest, in particular, could put a damper on the city’s newly expanded Terminal 5, which Southwest uses along with other carriers.

“The timing of the manufacturing problems are really unfortunate, since Chicago has lagged other cities and is now poised to bounce back,” he said.

The delivery challenges come as American and United, O’Hare’s two main carriers, plan to fly more this summer across their entire networks. United is expecting its busiest recorded Memorial Day travel weekend and its busiest summer travel season ever, with both up about 5% compared with 2023.

At O’Hare, United expects to operate 6% more seats on planes over the extended Memorial Day weekend than in 2023, the carrier said. The carrier also plans to fly more across the Atlantic than last year.

The Associated Press contributed.