Chicago O'Hare International Airport Will Have 17 European Passenger Airlines For The 1st Time In 7 Years

Chicago O’Hare is the US’s third-busiest airport for Europe-bound flights. According to Cirium Diio data for July 2026, it will have an average of 54 daily departures across the pond. Inevitably, American Airlines and United Airlines will have over half of the market (52% of the flights).

But what about European passenger operators? When writing, 17 of them are currently planned, which will be the highest number in seven years. O’Hare’s portfolio of European carriers will include HiSky from Bucharest for the first time. Its first departure to the Illinois airport will be next June.

O’Hare’s European Airlines With More Than A Daily Flight In July 2026

Seven of the 17 carriers plan more than a daily flight, with the following all having between two and four daily departures. Partly due to the significance of American and United at O’Hare, all the carriers except Aer Lingus are members of either oneworld or Star Alliance. However, the Irish flag carrier is in American’s transatlantic joint venture group.

Lufthansa is the leading European airline at O’Hare, but that is influenced by its relationship with United, and because it has two routes. It plans to use two of its quadjets—the Airbus A340-300 and the Boeing 747-8i—from Frankfurt, which is its busiest hub. When all routes are considered, quadjets operate two out of three of the German giant’s twin-aisle flights from Frankfurt.

European Carriers With A Daily Service Or Less From O’Hare Next July

The list includes HiSky, whose first O’Hare flight will take off on June 4, 2026. The tiny carrier only has one widebody: a 274-seat Airbus A330-200. It has 24 seats in business (2-2-2, but they’re not fully flat beds) and 250 in economy (2-4-2).

Bucharest-Chicago will be HiSky’s second US route, alongside New York JFK. Booking data for August 2024-July 2025 shows that Bucharest only had 18,000 round-trip O’Hare passengers, who were mainly Romanian Americans. Of unserved cities in Central and Eastern Europe, only Prague (32,000), Budapest (30,000), Sofia (29,000), and Vilnius (19,000) had more indirect traffic.

Notice Air Serbia. The Serbian flag carrier returned to O’Hare in May 2023, some 32 years after JAT (as it was then called) ceased DC-10 flights there. The Windy City is known for having many Serbian Americans and those of Serbian heritage. Additionally, Air Serbia also targets those traveling to other cities in the broad region, including to/from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Türkiye, etc.

Not Many European Airlines Have Pulled Out…

Using Cirium to explore O’Hare’s European passenger operators since 2018 shows that only two have pulled out. Norwegian flew from London Gatwick to Chicago between 2018 and 2019, followed by Barcelona in 2019. The carrier subsequently ended all long-haul flights due to chronic unprofitability. (United added O’Hare-Barcelona flights in 2023.)

The now-defunct Icelandic low-cost carrier WOW Air also ceased O’Hare flights. It flew from Keflavik between 2017 and 2019, with the A321neo used. Like Icelandair, WOW connected passengers across wider Europe. Although not involving Chicago, PLAY did so too, but the last of its US routes will end in October.