After only twelve months on the road, American Airlines has retired the strangest 'flight' in its Chicago network. From October 5, the 84-mile connection between South Bend Regional Airport (SBN) and Chicago O'Hare is flown by 65-seat Bombardier CRJ-700 jets operated by SkyWest, replacing the Landline motorcoaches that ran their last trips on October 4.

The bus service only launched on October 6, 2025, as one of the first two Chicago Landline routes alongside Rockford. Landline trips are sold as flights — you check bags, clear TSA and board a premium coach with 35 leather seats in a 2-1 layout, free Wi-Fi and full AAdvantage miles — then get driven straight to the secure side of O'Hare. That experiment clearly worked: the route was in high demand, and South Bend has graduated to three daily jet rotations with dual-class cabins, giving the city its first premium cabin on the Chicago route. Capacity actually rises 39%, from 140 to 195 seats each way daily, even though frequencies drop from four to three. At 84 miles, it is now American's second-shortest domestic jet route, behind only Chicago–Milwaukee at 67 miles.

The contrast with Rockford is stark. Both cities started as bus feeders on the same day, but Rockford's service ended entirely on October 4, while South Bend proved strong enough to justify aircraft. Airport CEO Mike Daigle said the connection has performed well and now gives South Bend passengers one-stop access to more than 350 destinations across American's network. The move also fires a shot at United, which already runs eight daily South Bend–O'Hare flights and bumped its own frequency up from six last year.

This is not the end of the buses. American still runs 22 daily Landline round trips from five airports around Philadelphia — Allentown, Atlantic City, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Wilmington and Trenton — feeding over 1,500 seats a day into its PHL hub. More than 200,000 people have used Landline overall, drawn by easy parking and quick check-in at small regional airports instead of driving into congested hubs. The concept has had teething problems, though: a passenger's TikTok about discovering her 'flight' was actually a bus went viral earlier this year with over 13.5 million views.

Why should travellers care? South Bend is a case study in how feeder routes get tested cheaply and upgraded when demand delivers — and it hands local flyers more seats, a first-class cabin and smoother connections at O'Hare, where American is aggressively expanding after adding 29 destinations in 2025. If you're connecting through Chicago from northern Indiana, your options just got better.

Story via Simple Flying.