In a highly unusual development, not one or two but three carriers have added Toronto Pearson to Chicago O'Hare services. Flair and WestJet Encore inaugurated the route last week, while Swoop – the low-cost subsidiary from WestJet – will take off on May 30th.It means that six airlines will operate, a record number. It is double as many than in any year since 2001. Looking back to the early 1990s, four carriers operated between 1991 and 2000: American, United, Air Canada, and Brazil's Varig (1991-1994; beginning in Rio de Janeiro and routing via O'Hare using a DC-10 and B767-300ER) and Canadian Airlines (1995-2000; B737-200 and A320).

Three new airlines on Toronto-ChicagoFlair began Toronto Pearson to Chicago O'Hare on May 17th. Operating on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, the 436-mile (702km) route has so far used a mix of 186-seat B737-800 and 189-seat B737 MAX 8. It leaves Canada at 06:50, arrives at 07:40 local time, departs at 08:35, and arrives back at 11:15.

Two days later, WestJet Encore – the regional part of the Group – launched using the 78-seat Dash-8-Q400. It has a 1x daily service, leaving Toronto at 15:35, arriving in Chicago at 16:26, departing at 17:10, and returning at 20:15.

Not to be outdone, and influenced by Flair, Swoop will launch on May 30th. It'll run on Mondays, and Thursdays, later changing to Thursdays and Sundays, similar to Flair. And by leaving Toronto at 06:30, it'll also have very similar timings. It'll use 189-seat B737-800s.

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Now six airlines

Flair, WestJet, and Swoop join American, Air Canada, and United. In the week starting June 5th, the six carriers have 137 departures from Pearson to O'Hare, with between 19 and 21 departures each day. The week is broken down as follows, organized by the carriers with the most flights:

  1. Air Canada: 49 weekly; using Embraer 175, A320, CRJ-700
  2. United: 41; Embraer 175, CRJ-200, B737-800, A320
  3. American: 35; Embraer 145, A319
  4. WestJet: 7; Dash-8-Q400
  5. Flair: 3; B737 MAX 8
  6. Swoop: 2; B737-800

Toronto and Chicago both have other airports. At the city level, there are 160 weekly departures, with up to 25 daily flights. The reason is Porter Airlines' flights from Toronto City Billy Bishop to Chicago Midway. It has 23 weekly departures and up to four daily, all using the Q400.

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Throwback to 2019

The Department of Transportation T-100 dataset shows 1,005,711 round passengers between O'Hare and Pearson in 2019. As there were 1,183,546 seats for sale, the market-level seat load factor (SLF) was 85.0%. For a fairer, better picture, fares would need to be considered too.

United carried 395,556 passengers (86.4% SLF), Air Canada 383,588 (81.4%), and American 226,567 (89.2%). Of course, these are just raw numbers. Helped by O'Hare and Pearson being large hubs, and the Toronto and Chicago significant cities with strong business demand, there was a very good mix between point-to-point (P2P) and transit traffic.

Booking data estimates that two-thirds of United's traffic connected over O'Hare, while it was around 51% for American. Only Air Canada had far more P2P traffic than transit, at about 64%.

Have you flown between Toronto and Chicago? If so, with what airline? Let us know in the comments.