Scott Kirby Says Passengers Love United’s Brand — But Data Shows They’re Just Following The Flights

United Airlines is adding a nonstop from Boston to Jackson Hole next winter. It’s a small ball route announcement, six Saturdays from February 13 through March 20, 2027, using a 126-seat Boeing 737-700. But the route is strategically revealing. United almost never flies point-to-point routes that don’t touch a hub. It became the linchpin of an interesting thread by a former Manager of Network Strategy at Hawaiian Airlines arguing that United has become America’s “ski-country airline.” Ski flying is no longer just service from a few western hubs like Denver and Salt Lake. Jackson Hole, Aspen, Vail Eagle and Steamboat Hayden pull nonstops from both coasts, while Bozeman and Kalispell have developed into substantial year-round markets. United has the broadest ski network, with 60 routes from seven cities to 15 mountain destinations in January and Februar. Denver is the largest by far, but Newark, Washington Dulles, Houston, Chicago and San Francisco all offer service. The claim is that their seat share across 13 airports rose from 30% in 2019 to 39% in 2026, while Delta fell from 23% to 15% and American from 22% to 18%. Across the western resort airports, United now has 39% of February seats. Alaska and American are tied at 18%, Delta has 15%, and Southwest has 6%. That excludes DEN, SLC, RNO and ABQ, where most passengers aren’t flying to ski. pic.twitter.com/RW8TEZ8i8l — Adam Nathan (@adampnathan) August 15, 2026 United is the ski-country airline. It serves all thirteen resort airports in this set and has 39% of February seats. DEN is the backbone, but EWR, IAD, IAH, ORD and SFO give it national reach. It even serves Mammoth through BIH from DEN and SFO. BOS-JAC adds a rare… pic.twitter.com/MZIsL7xS0E — Adam Nathan (@adampnathan) August 15, 2026 Delta’s ski network is a hub-and-spoke system built around SLC. It reaches nearly every mountain market from there, then uses ATL, MSP and the coasts to fill in seasonal demand. BOS, JFK, LGA, LAX and SEA add targeted routes, for 30 routes into 12 ski gateways this winter. pic.twitter.com/pIMl1hxIxu — Adam Nathan (@adampnathan) August 15, 2026 Nathan sources the central share chart to BTS T-100 Segment data. I recreated it using February inbound seats at the 13 primary airports shown in the thread: Aspen, Bishop, Bozeman, Durango, Eagle/Vail, Kalispell, Gunnison, Hayden, Jackson Hole, Montrose, Redmond, Santa Fe and Sun Valley. I assigned regional operator seats to United, American, Delta and Alaska using marketing-carrier flight shares from the BTS Marketing Carrier On-Time Performance database at the route, operator and month level. It looks like we’re looking at the same thing, for isntance the calculation produced 39,497 Southwest inbound seats in February 2026, while Nathan’s chart rounds to 39,000. Carrier Nathan 2019 BTS 2019 Nathan 2026 BTS 2026 United 30% 42.6% 39% 43.6% American 22% 24.1% 18% 20.2% Alaska 14% 8.7% 18% 10.1% Delta 23% 20.6% 15% 17.0% Southwest 0% 0.0% 6% 6.4% Other 11% 4.1% 4% 2.8% From what I can see, United didn’t pull away from 30% to 39%. It looks to me like United was already ahead at 42.6% in 2019 and reached 43.6% in 2026. They were the clear leader with their Denver hub to begin with, and maintain share while the total ski airport market expanded by about 62% which is amazing. This Appears to Be Half More Flying, Half Bigger Airplanes United’s inbound February capacity at these airports rose from 162,537 seats in 2019 to 268,888 in 2026, up 65.4%. Departures increased 27.3%, from 2,034 to 2,589. Average seats per departure rose 30.0%, from 79.9 to 103.8. United at 13 ski airports February 2019 February 2026 Change Inbound seats 162,537 268,888 +65.4% Inbound departures 2,034 2,589 +27.3% Seats per departure 79.9 103.8 +30.0% 48% of United’s added seats came from more departures and 52% came from larger aircraft. So half of this came from network growht and half from upgauging. This Was Scott Kirby’s Strategy From The Beginning United named Scott Kirby president on August 29, 2016, right after being fired by American. just days after American fired him. The strategy began showing up in its 2016 annual report, began showing up in the 2017 schedule and was explained most completely at the January 2018 investor event. Kirby’s diagnosis was that United’s mid-continent hubs lacked scale. Too few destinations, frequencies and seats made the airline less useful to local customers. That meant fewer local passengers, weaker loyalty, less revenue, fewer credit card customers, poorer connectivity and worse profitability. And even its coastal hubs had been downgauged. The prescription was to restore breadth and frequency, bank hubs more effectively, replace 50-seat regional jets with larger regional and mainline aircraft, and grow domestic capacity. United expected several years of 4% to 6% annual capacity growth while it rebuilt the network. Kirby made a compelling case, but the market initially didn’t like it. It reflexively didn’t like capacity growth. But he reversed the Smisek-era playbook where United had retrenched domestically, leaned too heavily on small regional jets and treated capacity reduction as a tool for better unit revenue. The Credit Card Thesis Was A Key Part Of The Network Thesis Kirby argued that stronger local share would produce more co-brand card customers and spending. In this model, schedule drove loyalty. More destinations, better schedules and appropriate aircraft make United useful on more trips. That relevance wins more local passengers and corporate contracts. More customers choose MileagePlus and the United credit card because the currency becomes easier to use. Card economics and higher-yield local revenue support more network investment. Ski networks represent both the rise of premium leisure, which began years earlier but accelerated rapidly after the pandemic, and delivering destinations desireable card customers also want to go with their miles. Kirby went from American to United and unwound much of United’s Smisek-era domestic retrenchment. Brian Znotins, one of United’s senior network planners during that earlier period, left shortly after Kirby arrived, went to WestJet and then joined American in January 2020. He’s since become American’s Senior Vice President of Network Planning. During that period American dismantled much of its Los Angeles hub and let Chicago shrink sharply, while United kept building relevance in both markets. The executive American pushed out rebuilt the domestic network United had neglected, while a planner from that United era moved to American as it retreated from two of the country’s most important premium markets where United had strength. And American’s cobrand card spend volume went from number one to number three among major airlines, with United taking second place. Chicago Shows The Same Strategy More Clearly United now touts a large local share lead over American in Chicago and an even larger advantage with corporate customers. United claims roughly a 19- to 22-point local share advantage and about a 38-point corporate lead. Here’s Kirby’s latest to employees on the matter from aviation watchdog JonNYC: More from Kirby, this talking about market share, specifically ORD and AA with a 4 point deficit in local share swinging to a 16 point premium, with more gains in the latest data, after the capacity dump. pic.twitter.com/J2TlyLFztE — JonNYC (@xJonNYC) August 12, 2026 Some of that is genuine customer preference. American damaged its position with product cuts, loyalty program devaluations, withdrawal from corporate sales, a weak post-pandemic schedule and a slower operational rebuild. United also improved its product and technology. While Kirby likes to focus on brand loyalty, let’s just look at the capacity. Between 2019 and 2025, United’s annual domestic seats at O’Hare rose 9.0%, from 38.83 million to 42.32 million. Its departures actually fell 7.4%, while average gauge rose 17.7%, from about 100 seats to 118. United domestic at O’Hare 2019 2025 Change Performed seats 38.83 million 42.32 million +9.0% Performed departures 388,319 359,704 −7.4% Seats per departure 100.0 117.6 +17.7% United seat share 47.2% 51.1% +3.9 points American seat share 39.6% 35.8% −3.8 points Holding 2019 gauge constant, fewer departures would have removed 3.11 million annual seats. Larger aircraft added 6.60 million. Every net seat United added at O’Hare came from upgauging. (This is prior to the big buildup of regional flights United tried to execute to capture gates from American, with a schedule the FAA blocked as unrealistic for the airport.) The United–American seat-share gap widened 7.7 points. Their passenger-share gap widened by a nearly identical 7.5 points, and their load factors were almost the same. T-100 passenger data includes connecting traffic, so this isn’t end of story for local preference, but it suggests seats explain much of the passenger result. That’s not entirely unrelated to preference, of course. So How Much Of Chicago Is Really Loyalty? Domestic local O&D data assembled by Cranky Flier show United gaining roughly five points of Chicago local share from 2019 to 2025. Over the same period, United’s domestic seat share across O’Hare and Midway rose about 3.2 points. Roughly 60% of the observed local share gain might be said to match to visible capacity share shift. Then there’s nonstop breadth, frequency, schedule timing, fares, corporate contracts, airport facilities, reliability, product, sales execution and international connectivity. All of those can affect which seats local travelers buy. United has been operating close to half of O’Hare’s flights versus roughly one-third for American, for a schedule gap of about 17 points. That alone is roughly 80% to 90% as large as United’s claimed local share lead, before considering United’s larger gauge. On seat capacity, the network may plausibly explain the whole broad advantage. I’d note that their products are different but that neither has a clear edge as being more ‘premium’ except that United has had more widebody aircraft and more premium seats to offer. The only arguable advantage United has had with MileagePlus is Star Alliance over oneworld for more options. American has arguably been better for upgrades and award pricing on own-metal. American has had better wifi until 2026 with United’s move to Starlink. United has increasingly had seat back TVs. American’s long haul food is better. United’s wine is better. United’s app is better. I’d choose American’s business class seats over United’s, while United has more extra legroom coach. When Marriott closed its acquisition of Starwood, I sat down for an hour with then-CEO Arne Sorenson. Sorenson had said that loyalty, to him, meant always offering the customer the best value for every stay. I told him I thought he had it backward – that loyalty meant the customer would choose the brand even on stays where they weren’t the best value because by treating the customer well across all of their stays they wouldn’t look elsewhere. I’m not sure that United building out a Marriott broad network, and having customers choose them for flights, is indicative of deep loyalty. United’s net domestic capacity growth at O’Hare came entirely from larger aircraft, while American’s retreat opened space to become the default choice for more local Chicago customers. There’s little question that United is a better airline than when Kirby arrived a decade ago, though I don’t think it’s nearly as good as he presents it to be today. Kirby’s loyalty claim may be true, but it’s at least as plausible from public data that his earlier claims about schedule are true. Put another way, and as much as I hate to admit this because I believe that product and loyalty offering do matter, seat share may simply explain how United manufactured loyalty. His argument a decade ago was that the most useful network wins the customer, the customer makes the loyalty program and credit card more valuable, and those economics finance an even stronger network. The data so far supports him. Topics on this page