The Federal Aviation Administration is looking to impose a limit on flights out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for the summer travel season.
The current schedules call for as many as 3,080 takeoffs and landings on peak travel days, up from the summer 2025 peak of 2,680, the FAA said in a document due to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.
The agency defines the summer travel season as March 29 to Oct. 25.
Currently, there are roughly 2,800 O’Hare takeoffs and landings daily. The FAA is proposing to make that level a formal limit to let air carriers use the airport’s fullest capacity without causing disruptions by overextending its resources.
Part of the boom in flight scheduling is tied to how the airport decides which airlines get which gates. They are allocated based on how many flights an air carrier flew the previous year, according to the Chicago Tribune.
United Airlines, the largest airline at O’Hare, is planning to run 780 departing flights daily for the summer season, a 34% year-over-year increase, while second-largest carrier American Airlines is planning up to 526 departures each day, a 9.5% year-over-year increase, according to the Tribune.
O’Hare was the busiest airport in the country in 2025 with 857,000 takeoffs and landings overall, according to the newspaper.
The FAA said it will review each 30-minute block between 6 a.m. and 9:59 p.m., along with air carriers, to come up with an hourly schedule limit.
The FAA plans to meet with the airlines and the Chicago Department of Aviation, which runs O’Hare, starting Wednesday.
United Airlines said that “we share their commitment to running a safe and reliable operation out of O’Hare and look forward to a collaborative discussion,” according to CNBC.
American Airlines said it applauds the FAA “for taking proactive action to ensure the operational integrity of the airfield and airspace in Chicago,” according to the TV network.
A Chicago Department of Aviation spokesperson told the city’s WBBM-TV that it looks forward to working to “finalize a temporary adjustment to the summer schedule at O’Hare that ensures safe and efficient operations while taking into account current gate availability, air traffic control staffing capacity and ongoing construction activity.”
