"Even if you got rid of the Wright Amendment, I still don''t think you would see people from these areas flock to Southwest."
As somebody who lives in one of those "bedroom towns" between Dallas and Ft. Worth, I disagree.
Remember, many companies in the Dallas-area use Southwest as their business carrier of choice for travel within the Wright Amendment, despite the fact that it may result in a somewhat longer drive than going to DFW. Why? Because for many of these companies, business travel is often booked less than 7 days in advance, and they can often get significantly lower fares on Southwest than they could if they went to DFW. Imagine how they would celebrate if they could get those significantly lower fares with a short advance purchase for cities outside the Wright Amendment?
I have no doubt that Southwest would have a nice customer base if the WA were dropped.
However, at this point, I don''t see AA as being the main opponent to the WA. They certainly don''t have the money right now to be staging a legal battle against the WA, anyway. I see the city of Ft. Worth as being the main opponent. If I remember this correctly, don''t Ft. Worth and Dallas split some of the revenue and taxes generated from DFW? I think Ft. Worth''s main complaint was that, if DAL were free of the WA, the city of Dallas would not just be getting revenue from DFW, but also DAL as well. I could be completely wrong here, but I remember this once being discussed on the local news.
I also don''t see WN heading into DFW anytime soon. I''m not sure the benefits of starting service out of DFW outweigh the costs incurred. In addition, WN is trying to avoid looking like a vulture given the current state of many airlines, and they would certainly look like a vulture if they went into AA''s stronghold right now. And you could bet a major fare war would ensue. The result is that it would appear as though WN were going for AA''s throat.
Although I think WN would have great success if the WA were lifted, they DO have a nice little niche in the intra-state market. The WA DOES have a benefit to WN, strangely enough: it keeps other carriers from wanting to come into Love Field.
By the way, did anyone hear on the local news that there are some citizens that are pushing for a change to the Wright Amendment: to allow through-ticketing?
