Is United Airlines getting ready to move? Is city hall going to do something? anything?

 

Latest United Airlines Filing Suggests Headquarters Move Out Of Chicago

by Gary Leff on January 4, 2024

Over the summer United Airlines purchased 113 acres in Denver for $33 million. A spokesperson said at the time that the airline would expand their pilot training facility. It doesn’t take over 100 acres for that.

Then at the TD Cowen Global Transportation Conference, United CFO Gerald Laderman said there were “no imminent plans” to move their headquarters, noting that the airline has “a long-term lease at Willis Tower. We’ve been there for decades in Chicago. Denver is like Houston. We have lots of facilities in Houston.” Saying that no move is ‘imminent’ was not a denial.

• They’ve already scaled down their presence in Chicago’s Willis Tower (née Sears Tower). 

• Their lease runs into 2032. 

• They cannot make an ‘imminent’ move because nothing has been built in Denver yet. 

• When Boeing’s tax benefits for locating in Chicago ran out, they decamped for Northern Virginia. United has clashed with city administration in Chicago. And United lacks a corporate campus like Delta and American now have.

In late December United filed a “large development review” plan with the City of Denver. Yes they’re going to initially going to add 12 flight simulators for pilot training.  They are also working on a new corporate campus that would support 5,000 employees, enough to move all the workers at the current Chicago Willis Tower headquarters. According to the airline,

Concurrently, alongside the [flight training center], United is actively investigating programmatic needs to support corporate campus activity accommodating 5,000 employees in future phases of the project.

Enilria adds,

The location of the plot of land sitting on a rail line that runs to the airport and downtown is also perfectly positioned for a corporate headquarters. The location is also only 2 miles from the Frontier Airlines headquarters and nearly touching the plot of land for the former Frontier Airlines headquarters.

From 1937 to 1963, United Airlines corporate predecessor Continental Airlines was headquartered in Denver.