In the eyes of most travelers, United, American, and Delta Airlines look eerily similar. From the snacks to the seats, from the lounges to the reliability, these giants of the sky have fine-tuned their services to near-perfect synchronicity. Change fees? Waived in tandem. Free Wi-Fi? Announced as if by shared script. Even when it comes to upping baggage fees, it’s like they’re operating from the same internal memo.
But this isn’t a coincidence. It’s strategy. This is what an oligopoly looks like.
When three dominant firms control a market, competition becomes a dance. Direct battles on price or product rarely break out. Instead, airlines find other, more subtle battlegrounds. And in the case of America’s Big Three, that battlefield is network design.
The Hidden Game of Route Networks
At a glance, the route maps of United, American, and Delta seem like carbon copies. But beneath the surface, each carrier has engineered a distinct niche.
Take United Airlines.
In 2024, United launched a curious seasonal route: Washington D.C. to Anchorage, Alaska. From a logistical standpoint, this was borderline irrational. D.C. is poorly placed for Alaska-bound connections, and the aircraft—a Boeing 737 Max 8—would be flying near its maximum range. Yet, United launched the flight anyway. Why?
The answer lies in United’s bet on network depth. Among the Big Three, United flies to the most destinations, despite offering fewer daily flights and carrying fewer passengers than its peers. Their strategy is to spread out—to reach more unique markets, to connect odd dots, to be everywhere.
That means launching flights others wouldn’t dare. Think: Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. Farmington, New Mexico. Christchurch, New Zealand. These aren’t margin-friendly routes. They require risk tolerance and faith in demand induction—and United believes it can create demand by simply being first.
Depth vs Breadth: The Global Game
Compare this to American Airlines. The largest by passenger volume, it focuses more on network efficiency than reach. American serves fewer international destinations, and when it does, it leans heavily on partnerships to extend its reach, particularly with British Airways in London.
This is no accident. American gutted much of its long-haul fleet during the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision that limited its international ambitions. With fewer widebody aircraft, it had to prioritize. So it doubled down on London—a golden hub for Europe-bound travel. Today, over a third of American’s European capacity flows through Heathrow.
American’s strength lies closer to home: dominating the Sun Belt. It controls major hubs in Phoenix, Dallas, and Miami, allowing it to own domestic traffic flows from the South and Southwest. This positions it perfectly to connect mid-sized markets like El Paso and Albuquerque to the rest of the country—efficiently and profitably.
Delta: The Brand-Focused Middle Ground
Delta, meanwhile, splits the difference. Its network sits somewhere between United’s global sprawl and American’s domestic density. But its true bet is on brand and experience.
Delta invests in consistent service, punctuality, and the perception of quality. Passengers report better treatment. Investors see stronger profits. Delta rarely takes the kinds of route risks United does. It has a powerful hub in Atlanta—perhaps the best-located hub in the country—but doesn’t dominate niche destinations or far-flung cities.
It has retreated from more ambitious product differentiation post-COVID, eliminating luxury touches in economy class. But its core strength remains: reliability, loyalty, and perception.
The Network as Strategy
Every airline has a fortress:
- United bets on being everywhere first
- American bets on being dominant somewhere
- Delta bets on being trusted everywhere
This isn’t just coincidence—it’s optimization.
United uses international long-haul depth as its calling card. With a weak partner footprint in Europe via Lufthansa’s inland hubs (Frankfurt, Munich), it fills in the gaps with nonstop flights to underserved cities like Faro, Malaga, and Tenerife. These are cities no other U.S. airline dares to serve directly.
It’s the same story in Asia-Pacific. With a unique hub in Guam and underused assets there, United is transforming Tokyo Narita into a mini-hub. New narrowbody routes connect underserved cities like Cebu, Ulaanbaatar, and Kaohsiung. The result? A fully United itinerary to destinations that once required overnight connections or unfamiliar foreign carriers.
Meanwhile, American rides its massive domestic base to extract scale advantages. It operates more daily flights out of El Paso than United and Delta combined. Its Miami hub powers dominance in the Caribbean. And its partnerships in Europe make up for a skeletal long-haul presence.
Delta, for all its restraint, thrives on efficiency. It avoids competitive frenzies. Instead, it commands loyalty and profitability through the consistency of its experience and the power of its brand.
Oligopoly in Action
Here’s the twist: despite appearing to compete, these airlines behave like synchronized swimmers. Their similarities are deliberate. Their differences are strategic.
They don’t undercut each other on fares because that would hurt everyone. They don’t differentiate their products too much because the market doesn’t reward it. But they fiercely guard their networks—the one place they can stand apart.
And in that quiet war of routes, connections, and gateways, the fate of how America (and much of the world) flies is being decided every single day.
