That's where you and I disagree. I don't believe repeal of the Wright Amendment would have that much of an impact on the DFW area. It would have some impact but not very much. Love Field's location and lack of room to expand would prohibit a mass exodus from DFW to Love. I also don't think repeal of Wright would hurt AA all that much either. AA's already struggling because they gobbled up quite a few unproductive routes from other airlines. Remember Braniff? There were other airlines too that AA bought the routes from. AA had to take unproductive routes in addition to the more profitable routes.
I still own three whole shares of Braniff. My Dad used to commute between Houston and Dallas on a regular basis. Braniff had a flight that left Houston at 6:30 and they served breakfast on the flight. Braniff decided to move the flight forward by about 20 minutes and they discontinued serving breakfast on that flight. My Dad bought 2 shares of Braniff where he could write their CEO and complain not only about the time change and no breakfast as a consumer but also as a stockholder.
I'd like to see a non-biased study of Love's capacity for more flights because in the late 80's to early 90's Southwest ran flights out of Love on a regular basis. Back then I was at Love Field every other weekend because my son flew to Houston to visit his Dad. On Friday nights and Sunday afternoons SW flights were leaving Love every 10 minutes or so. I'm just not all that convinced there's room or timeslots available for a bunch of new flights out of Love.
1. In the early 1960s, as a result of its finding that Dallas and Fort Worth' each operating competing airports was harmful to the public interest, the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) ordered the cities to build a jointly owned airport to serve the area's needs.
2. The cities responded by creating the DFW Board in 1968 and adopting a Bond Ordinance to finance the construction of DFW. As an essential part of the Bond Ordinance, the cities agreed to phase out passenger air service at their two existing airports with commercial service -- Dallas Love Field and Fort Worth's Greater Southwest Airport. The interstate carriers using the Dallas and Fort Worth airports agreed to move their operations to DFW (which opened in 1973).
3. Despite the clear intention of the cities and the cooperation of all other air carriers, Southwest Airlines (which began operating solely intrastate service from Dallas Love Field in 1971) steadfastly refused to move its operations to DFW, leading to a series of long and expensive law suits in the 1970s. Southwest, by arguing that the CAB determinations and Bond Ordinance provisions did not apply because it only served intrastate markets, successfully thwarted the efforts of Dallas, Fort Worth, and DFW to fulfill the Bond Ordinance objective of consolidating passenger service at DFW. As a result of this litigation, Southwest continued to offer intrastate service from Love Field.
4. Shortly after Congress deregulated the airline industry in 1978, Southwest applied for permission to provide interstate service between Love Field and New Orleans, in clear contravention of the intention of the Cities (as set out in the Bond Ordinance). This action threatened yet another round of litigation and controversy regarding Love Field.
5. In order to put an end to the dispute and resolve all legal challenges, Texas Congressman Jim Wright negotiated a settlement among the interested parties. To make it binding, the agreement was codified into the so-called Wright Amendment (section 29 of the International Aviation Transportation Act of 1979). The law allowed Love Field to stay open instead of being closed down to commercial aviation as originally intended.
6. With the agreement of Southwest Airlines, the City of Dallas, the City of Fort Worth, the DFW Airport Board, and other interested parties, the Wright Amendment allowed the airport to remain open only so long as service would be limited to points in Texas and the four contiguous states. Without this amendment, the city of Dallas would have continued the process of closing Love Field. Since 1979, the only change to the law was the 1997 "Shelby Amendment" to allow service to an additional three close-by states and unrestricted flights on aircraft with less than 56 seats.
7. For the past 25 years, Southwest has steadily developed Love Field into the most highly concentrated single-carrier hub in the nation. It currently operates all the commercial service at Love except for one route operated by Continental Express to Houston with small regional jets. It controls all the active gates except the two used by Continental Express. Over the years, it made it very clear that it never supported the lifting of the Wright Amendment, always saying that it was "passionately neutral" while allowing others to carry the water in opposition to repeal or modification of the law.
8. For years, DFW Airport has offered gates to Southwest to provide as much service as it would like. There has never been a time when Southwest has been unable to provide service from the Dallas-Fort Worth area to any point in the country by using the same airport that all other carriers do. This is even more true today. With the departure of Delta as a major presence at DFW, Southwest could immediately obtain as many gates and facilities at DFW as it has today at Love Field. After studying the opportunity at DFW carefully, however, including incentives offered by the DFW Airport Board, Southwest recently announced that it had again decided not to offer service from DFW.
9. In so doing, Southwest consciously chose to remain exclusively in an airport with limited operations. The concept of limiting the use of local airports is by no means unique to North Texas. Both Washington (D.C) Reagan National and New York LaGuardia airports are restricted to shorter flights in order to allow the financing of larger regional airports. When Denver built its new international airport, it immediately de-activated and later destroyed the runways at the old Stapleton field in order to prevent the type of situation that is occurring in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Similarly, Austin, Texas, also destroyed its old airport when its new replacement airport opened.
10. In the mid-1990s, DFW embarked upon a major expansion project adding a new international terminal and building a state-of-the-art people mover. Public utility bonds which, in turn, are backed by airport revenues have financed this expensive project. As it was in Washington D.C., New York, Denver and Austin, the underlying economics of the bonds assume that DFW will remain the only major airport in the area. The burden of backing the bonds ultimately falls on the air carriers who pay rates and charges for the use of the facility and the costs of the financing.
11. Just as the construction project has neared completion at DFW and all the funding is committed, and the prospect of low cost carriers adding new service from DFW is even more real, Southwest has abruptly changed its stance on the Wright Amendment and has declared that it is "anti-competitive." For the local community the timing couldn't be worse. More than a billion dollars have been poured into new facilities at DFW. But Southwest's proposed change in the law could divert hundreds of flights away from DFW as well as scare off any new entry, and thereby jeopardizes the financial base of support for the bonds used to finance DFW improvements.
12. The Wright Amendment debate is much more complicated than the simple (and inaccurate) notion that Southwest is restricted as to where it can fly. It is not. It has exactly the same opportunities and restrictions as any other carrier to serve the Dallas-Fort Worth market, or anywhere else in the country. Despite this, it now it wants to be able to do what no other airline has ever done - - get Congress to change the rules so that it can exploit its monopoly status at Love Field to become even more entrenched there. At a time when Southwest is the only air carrier - - new or old - - to consistently make a profit, it makes no sense for Congress to hand it an enormous and unprecedented economic windfall.
13. In sum, this is a complicated local issue with lots of history and very high stakes. Congress should certainly not abruptly and adversely affect the largest construction project in Texas, by repealing a law that continues to be supported by the local communities and members of the Texas Congressional delegation. Both the mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth oppose the repeal of the Wright Amendment, as does the DFW Board, which has the fiduciary duty to protect bondholders and the airport itself. Their views should not be second-guessed by others