Southwest Offers $100M for ATA Assets

AP-Business/YahooNews ^ | Sat, Dec 11, 2004 | By DAVID KOENIG, AP Business Writer

[TLOne]

DALLAS - The bidding war for bankrupt ATA Airlines' assets heated up on Friday when Southwest Airlines offered at least $100 million in cash and loans for gates at Chicago's Midway Airport and an alliance with ATA, its main rival there.

Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly said the bid represented the only way that his company could meet its top goal of expanding in Chicago. He said Southwest's proposal would let ATA Airlines Inc. still operate at Midway but with fewer gates.

Southwest is seeking to upset the bid of another low-cost carrier, AirTran Airways, a unit of Orlando-based AirTran Holdings Inc., which offered about $90 million for many of ATA's assets.

[TLOne]

If SWA can just get rid of "Ft. Wortless Jim Wright's" Wright Amendment then Dallas will have decent low cost air service from Love Field too.

[stockstrader]

The "Wright Amendment" is currently an outrage. It's just incredible that the people of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area are willing to continue to be PRICE-GOUGED by that outdated abomination.

Can anyone think of a better example of outdated, restricitive, overreaching, government bureaucracy--which results stifled competition and higher consumer prices than that thing?

The "Wright Amendment" must go!! The entire economy would be helped by removing that anti-competitive restraint!

Not only would people in the Dallas area greatly benefit--but others around the country who travel to Dallas would also benefit if this dinosaur is finally removed!

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Isn't DFW enough of a zoo?

[TLOne]

Here's a good WSJ article on why the Wright Amendment is WRONG

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/0,,SB110176558208685968,00.html

[PAR35]

Isn't DFW enough of a zoo?

Delta is getting ready to shut down almost all of its flights at DFW. Opening up DAL to long distance flights would give travelers an option of both airports and airlines.

[cowtowney]

If you need to travel between Nashville, Tenn., and Dallas, the lowest unrestricted, nonstop fare is $1,291 on American Airlines. But if you want to fly between Nashville and Houston nonstop, you'd pay no more than $356 for a round-trip ticket on Southwest. Southwest can fly to Nashville from Houston, but not from Dallas.

Enough said. Guess who has been paying the difference for years and years?

Thanks for the link.

[stockstrader]

The Wright Amendment simply subsidizes the GOUGING of airline passengers to and from Dallas--in the interest of American Airlines.

American Airlines is the ONLY beneficiary of this outdated, restrictive and outrageous dinosaur of a law--at the expense of ALL CONSUMERS traveling to Dallas from any states other than the Texas bordering states!

Why do the consumers in Dallas--and those travelling to Dallas from EVERYWHERE else--PUT UP WITH THIS OUTRAGEOUS PRICE-GOUGING?