United will add flights to 10 new domestic destinations from O’Hare International Airport next year, routes the airline says were made possible by the additional gate space it won through the city’s airport gate reallocation process this fall.

United’s new destinations next year will include Santa Barbara, California; Eugene, Oregon; Paducah, Kentucky; and Rochester, Minnesota, among others. Service on the new routes will start next spring and summer.

United won five new gates under a “use it or lose it” provision in a lease agreement that United and its rival, American Airlines, signed with the city in 2018. Under the agreement, gates at the airport are reallocated based on an airline’s flying frequency the previous year.

United’s new gates have been the subject of a legal tug-of-war between the airline and American, which lost four gates under the process this year.

Earlier this year, American sued United and the city of Chicago over the gate reallocation process, alleging that the reallocation process was initiated too early. But this fall, a Cook County judge sided with the city. United was officially granted the new gates Oct. 1.

“United is already flying its busiest schedule in history at O’Hare,” Patrick Quayle, the airline’s senior vice president of global network planning, said in a statement. “Now these additional gates have unlocked new opportunities to intertwine cities across the country, serve more customers in Chicago and strengthen our hometown hub.”

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