Posted on 11/11/2005 5:14:27 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Congressional negotiators agreed on Thursday to exempt Missouri from restrictions on direct air service from Dallas Love Field to several states, an issue that has Texas rivals' Southwest Airlines and American Airlines locked in a bitter fight.
House-Senate lawmakers hammering out details of a spending bill for transportation and treasury programs agreed to the Missouri exemption to a 26-year-old law called the Wright Amendment.
The exemption was sponsored by Sen. Christopher Bond, a Missouri Republican. Congress has approved similar waivers for other states in the past.
Budget powerhouse Southwest wants the Wright Amendment repealed to broaden service, while its Texas rival No. 1 American Airlines is fighting to keep it in place to preserve its customer base and huge investment at nearby Dallas-Fort Worth airport.
"In this case the dominant player (American) is being protected from the little guy," Bond told a Senate hearing on the matter earlier in the day.
Executives from both carriers appealed to Senate lawmakers but there appears little appetite for congressional intervention this year on the question of repeal even though a proposal to do so has some powerful sponsors, some senators indicated.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, suggested the matter be settled by the airlines and local officials, rather than through federal legislation.
"This puts Congress in a very bad situation," Hutchison said.
Pushed through in 1979 by then House of Representatives majority leader, Texas Democrat Jim Wright, the law restricts direct service from Love Field to other cities in Texas and several nearby states. It was intended to boost the prospects for then fledgling DFW.
American's chief executive Gerard Arpey told the Senate Commerce subcommittee on aviation that he would have to scale back operations at DFW and shift some service to much smaller Love Field, if the law were repealed.
Southwest founder and chairman Herb Kelleher said lifting the statute was would open Love Field -- and Dallas -- to more competition.
"DFW has gotten so big I'm surprised its not been implicated in a steroid scandal," Kelleher joked at the hearing.
But Arpey said Southwest has thrived for 30 years and expressed frustration with its sudden demand to repeal the law that he claims would be a windfall for Southwest because Love Field is closer to downtown Dallas than DFW.
"This is eating up time, money and energy we would like to devote to running our business," Arpey said.
What happened to states' Wrights? I don't really understand the issue here but I couldn't resist the urge to make a bad pun. I do know that if you are sitting in Bachman Lake park feeding the birds those Southwest jets look really big.
DFW is a "joint" production of Dallas and Fort Worth. Both cities had to agree to close their airports so there would be sufficient traffic to make the fledgling regional airport viable in the beginning. Fort Worth closed Amon Carter field, and Dallas closed Love Field.
Without the agreement, there would have been no DFW.
REPEAL THE WRIGHT AMENDMENT!
And that would have been a bad thing?
Don't forget Miami/Fort Lauderdale. If you want to stretch the distances a little, you could come up with some additional pairs in Florida.
The Winston Salem area used to have two, but when Piedmont went away, so did one of the airports. Of course, it's still just about an hour to Raleigh-Durham.
" And that would have been a bad thing?"
Beats me. I live in Florida now. But at the time, DFW was a big enough deal to go through the trouble of the Wright Amendment. To toss it overboard now would really shaft Fort Worth. I don't think Amon Carter Field is up to being reborn, and Love can't possibly handle all the traffic from DFW.
In that case, give Love what it can handle and if there is enough demand to justify the prices DFW charges, Love's landing slots will get bid up to that level. If there's not quite that much demand, DFW may have to reduce its prices.
Maybe. Then there's the matter of Dallasites being able to fly in and out of their city or DFW as they choose. While Fort Worth citizens, whose taxes are also paying for all this, cannot fly from their own city and must drive to DFW, which is midway between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Fort Worth is probably fighting to not end up with the short end of the stick, but I'm just surmising here.
No, they didn't close it. They TRIED to close it. They got all of the airlines to sign off on the deal before DFW got underway. Unfortunatley for AA, Continental and Braniff, Southwest began flying after the agreement, but before DFW was completed. No one thought to try to make them sign off on a move. (Delta also served the Dallas market, but at that point it was not a major player there).
When Dallas tried to close Love, Southwest sued and won. The airport remained, and remains, open. I believe that it is presently served by two airlines. At one point within the last 10 years, they were up to 5 airlines.
It's not my fault they closed their airport. (BTW, IMHO, Congress should have nixed ALL funding for O'Hare expansion when King George trashed Meigs. If Chicago has adequate capacity that it doesn't need Meigs, it has adequate capacity).
Correction: King Richard. King George was actually out of office at that point (though with luck, he'll one day be indicted and convicted).
That's correct. Love was supposed to close but Southwest got in. Weren't they in on the basis that they would fly only intrastate, though? Then they fought for and gradually accumulated permission to fly out of state. It's been a very legalistic thing, but inevitable given all the parties involved. The free market's a marvel.... regulated economies are a nightmare.
Well, you can tell Fort Worth to bugger off if you like, but the regional politicos aren't in any hurry to piss of a few hundred thousand voters so that Billy Bob can board a plane at Love Field whenever he likes instead of driving to DFW and helping finance all the wonderful amenities there.
The WSJ recently ran an article about how locals benefit when an airline pulls out of a "hub." Congress should repeal the Wright amendment and let the markets work. Prices into and out of DFW would fall by 50% or more to lots of destinations, as discount carriers scoop up slots that American abandons, assuming, of course, that American does abandon slots, which I doubt. By disclosure, I own shares in American, but I still believe in free markets.
I think you are right on that, but it's too late for me to Google and make sure. I do know that they started as an intrastate carrier. I don't know if they expanded out of state before deregulation or not.
This was kinda like when Denver built Penis Intl Airport and shut down Stapleton right after Stapleton expanded its terminal space.
When is Congress going to allow Texans to fly wherever they want from Love Field, and not require those of us in the Dallas area to pay through the nose and fly American??
Missouri??
What kind of deal is it we get to fly to Missouri? Do they have cities there?
Typical asinine Hutchison remark.
I'm hoping some ambitious Texas Republican challenges her in next year's primary - I'd take a leave of absence from work to help out ANYone running against her!
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