Midway: Southwest Plane Crashes through fence.

A plane has apparently crashed through a fence at Midway airport in Chicago. Southwest airline 737 plane now sitting in intersection of 55th and Central. Channel 7 has confirmed, fire and ambulances on way. Details still sketchy.

My question is, how much is American losing when they charge those fares? The airline industry can't raise ticket prices enough to cover the higher cost of jet fuel right now.

They shouldn't be losing anything. SWA charges those fares and is making money - why can't American? AA is a fine airline. My father-in-law flys for them & I worked for them in college. But they run an inefficient operation (the hub-and-spoke model) and the fact that they're losing money isn't SWA's fault.

Love was supposed to be torn down when DFW was built.

No it wasn't, but Dallas could tear down Love right now if it wanted to - but don't think for a second that SWA would move to D/FW. They'd sooner go to San Antonio or Austin.

SW begged "please, please, we'll only fly little trips and won't hurt anyone" and got Wright. If there had originally been a provision in Wright to say that when DFW was strong and stable, Wright would be repealed, I might feel differently - but there isn't. A deal is a deal.

SWA did nothing of the sort. SWA, and all airlines, had their hands tied before deregulation. Once deregulation came along (years after DFW was up and running), Southwest was free to fly anywhere from Love. Only then was the Wright Amendment passed - specifically to prevent Southwest from enjoying the fruits of deregulation that EVERY OTHER carrier got.

SWA was never part of any of the 'deals' that happened re Love Field and D/FW - it didn't even exist at the time! This thing was litigated over and over - with SWA winning every time. So D/FW and AA got Wright to tack his amendment to the end of a completely unrelated bill. Corruption of worst sort, IMO - I'd be surprised if money didn't change hands.

I'll add to that, "Unless it's still the 1980s and we're over Oklahoma."

Until the mid '80s, no alcohol could be served in the air over Oklahoma. Considering that we were over Oklahoma in about 15 minutes or less out of LUV, there was a window of about 3-5 minutes for chugging, if you could talk to a stew in advance to hurry the cart. Most times, they didn't bother stocking it.

it speaks a bit to the SW culture of getting the planes in fast, taxiing fast and getting out fast.

I've heard the same. Hot dogging it gets you one dead child.

Also heard that there was NO discussion before landing by pilots and air traffic control about using an alternate airport, despite knowing the landing strip was compromised and even with minimum weight in the plane, it would have been a risk of having enough runway to brake to a stop.

And they never used the maximum setting for the autobrake, despite its being called for in landings on compromised runway conditions.

PILOT ERROR. One dead child.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.