Aa Wright Amendment Study Released

[PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH]

If the City of Dallas really wanted to uphold it's end of the DFW bargain, they would shut down Love field and rip up the runways like Denver did with Stapleton.

 

[Bob Owens]

Your right it's all about attitude. When my 17.5% paycut is rescinded with back pay and our sick time,vacation,doubletime clause,etc. is restored. I might consider helping out poor mister Arpey(the guy who has a bankruptcy proof pension and was one of the idiots who wanted to buy TWA), until then forget it! What will be the reward for fighting SWA for AA? Another paycut? More concessions?

[post="311249"][/post]​

Exactly. We have no long term future with AA anymore, why would we want to help them stifle the growth of a carrier that offers their employees a future?

Hey if SWA keeps growing then we can quit and go work for them and get a pay raise, doubletime, Holiday pay, sick time etc to boot!

After Sept 11 we were told to pull together and lobby our politicians for a bailout and we did, our reward? A 25% reduction in compensation, we lost our holidays, shifts pay etc,etc. Then on top of that when the airlines were asked to help get government aid for the 100,000 laid off airline workers they gave the cold shoulder.

AA has plenty of money, they took it from us. I'll be damned before I go lobbying on behalf of them again.

 

[LoneStarMike]

If the City of Dallas really wanted to uphold it's end of the DFW bargain, they would shut down Love field and rip up the runways like Denver did with Stapleton.

[post="311251"][/post]​

I'm sure they'll be glad to do that just as soon as Ft. Forth demolishes Alliance Airport.

If DFW wants to play the poor financially strapped victim at a time when every penny of revenue counts, they should be just as concerned about the revenue Alliance siphons away from DFW as they are about the revenue Love Field takes away.

LoneStarMike

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

It seems everyone has an opinion about the Wright ammendment.

Like everything else, "only the BOTTOM LINE counts.

Wrightly or Wrongly 😛 , the bottom line is this,

The WA will NOT be overturned anyday soon, nor will it even be brought up on the floors of congress.

Because;

There are MORE "heavy hitters" in DC that want to see it kept "Status Quo"

"PERIOD"/Case closed !!!!!!!!!!!!

NH/BB's

 

[Ch. 12]

There are MORE "heavy hitters" in DC that want to see it kept "Status Quo"

[post="311385"][/post]​

They are called AMR lobbyists. Sadly, you are right. Our gov't protects the AMR fortress through bribery. Corrupt corporation, corrupt government. But then again...I'm not stating anything we didn't know already.

 

[mwa]

uh wait a minute - Ft Worth did dismantle GSW and as I recall its location just south of DFW could have been a windfall for them. ie who needed a mutual agreement when Ft Worth could have done everything that DFW did w/o Dallas.

 

[LoneStarMike]

...who needed a mutual agreement when Ft Worth could have done everything that DFW did w/o Dallas.

[post="311432"][/post]​

I think you*ve got that backwards. Dallas didn*t need traffic from Ft. Worth to have a successful airport. They were big enough to support one on their own.

Ft.Worth, on the other hand, absolutely needed Dallas passengers for its airport to be a success because Ft. Worth wasn*t big ebough to support an airport the size of GSW on its own, let alone one the size of DFW.

The only way GSW would have been a "windfall" for Ft. Worth is if more Dallas passengers had used it, but they didn*t.

What follows is the "Dallas" version of events (interestingly enough written by a person who lives in Fort Worth) that is on the history page at www.fightwright.org

He writes:

In The Beginning

The two cities of Dallas and Fort Worth were growing up fast only about 35 miles apart. As with all large towns at the time, they each had their own airport. Dallas had Love Field Airport and Fort Worth had Meacham Airport. Love Field was very advanced for the time and was considered the finest airport in the Southwest. Fort Worth was always second fiddle to Dallas, but most airlines made stops at both Dallas and Fort Worth on their way to other large cities.

In walks Amon Carter, the patriarch of Fort Worth and majority shareholder of American Airlines. We should pause to introduce the eclectic Mr. Carter. He owned nearly every media outlet in Fort Worth including the newspaper, radio station, and television station. He also owned several oil investments which paid handsomly. You might say he had the Midas Touch and was the goodest of the good-ole-boys. He even dined with Presidents.

But no matter what anybody says about him, Amon Carter loved Fort Worth and wanted it to be king of the Dallas/Fort Worth region. One of Carter*s associates once said of him, "That man wants the whole government of the United States to be run for the exclusive benefit of Fort Worth." (From Prairie To Planes, Page 49).

Fast-forward to the 1950*s. To cut costs for airlines who made the double-stop at Love and Meacham, Amon Carter decided there should be one centrally located large airport. What Amon wanted, Amon got. Dallas was interested, but when it came out that Mr. Carter and associates where making backroom deals, Dallas didn*t want any part of it.

For example, Amon Carter secretly got the main airport terminal built on the far West edge of the airport. That made the trip to the airport very convenient for people from Fort Worth, but anybody from Dallas would have to drive all the way over the airport and the drive South adding extra miles to their trip. Dallas people were soon calling it the "19 mile airport" to describe how far they had to drive to get there. And besides, Love Field airport was booming so why bother?

Against the advice of Dallas, Fort Worth went ahead with building this large mid-cities airport just South of what is now Route 183. It had the curiously long name of "Greater Fort Worth International Airport At Amon Carter Field." It wasn*t long before business at the new airport was bombing. The traffic at Love Field was an order of magnitude higher and Amon Carters new airport was heading for a fiscal disaster. Not good for an airport financed by Fort Worth.

The people in charge of the new airport tucked their tails between their legs and asked Dallas to help them, even offering to sell them a large share of the airport. They even shortened the airport name to, "Greater Southwest International Airport."

Dallas said, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Note: I have a copy of the book he refers to - From Prairie to Planes. It also tells how, in 1954, about a year and a half after Amon Carter Field opened, Fort Worth, in an affort to increase traffic at its own airport, wanted to sell Dallas a share in their airport, change the name of the airport to add Dallas and they proposed that a joint airport authority be formed with representatives from both cities. Dallas said the offer was nothing more than an effort by Fort Worth to bail itself out of financial problems.

www.fightwright.org contines the story:

Economic disaster seemed unavoidable. To save Fort Worth*s dignity and economy, [on September 30, 1964] the head of the FAA, Najeeb Halaby, inserted himself and said that both airports had to play nice, stop their city-to-city bickering, and develop a long-term solution to the current airport crisis that Fort Worth had caused with its ambitious and unnecessary mid-cities airport.

The two cities had representatives meet and after a few months they decided to replace the mid-cities airport with a new gargantuan co-developed Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport just north of the mid-cities airport, which would soon be bull-dozed. The abbreviation for the new airport would be D/FW.

I think Dallasites might feel that it wasn*t so much a case of the two cities fighting and bickering, it was more of a case of Forth Worth constantly nagging Dallas to come join them at their new airport because Ft. Worth needed Dallas* strong travel market to make its own airport viable.

And in the end, Ft. Worth basically got everything they had wanted from Dallas back in 1954. Remember, they wanted Dallas to own a half share of "their" airport even though Dallas was perfectly happy with its own. Well, they got their wish.

That*s why it*s always amusing to me to hear Fort Worth say "We tore down our airport. Dallas did not." Well of course Fort Worth tore down their airport. Since the new airport was being built right next door it was basically replacing Fort Worth*s old one, but on a much grander scale.

Since DFW was built very near the site of GSW, it*s just as convenient to Fort Worth as GSW was, but meanwhile, Dallasites, who make up the lion*s share of all travelers in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex were the ones facing a longer drive.

In return, Dallas was added to the name of the new airport, and as Ft. Worth had proposed in 1954, the airport is now run by a joint authority with representatives from both cities.

That*s why I think a lot of Dallasites have the mindset that Fort Worth needed them more than they needed Fort Worth and I think it might be one of the reasons there*s still so much arguing between the two cities today.

And if all this bickering wasn*t bad enough, Dallas had salt rubbed in its wounds when Dallas-based Braniff International filed for bankruptcy and Fort Worth-based American Arlines became the dominant player in the DFW market. Now not only did Dallasites have to use "Fort Worth*s" Airport, they now had to fly on "Fort Worth*s" airline.

AA also played a hand in squashing Dallas-based Legend, although Legend*s business plan also played a major role in their demise.

I think this whole debate has more to do with civic pride than anything else.

LoneStarMike

 

[Oneflyer]

They are called AMR lobbyists. Sadly, you are right. Our gov't protects the AMR fortress through bribery. Corrupt corporation, corrupt government. But then again...I'm not stating anything we didn't know already.

More blabering BS.

The local politicians like the status quo because it works and they can continue to take money from both WN and AA. I know of fund raising events where local congressmen have tables purchased by both AA and WN and won't sit at either, they'd rather just act like the whole thing didn't exsist.

 

[Ch. 12]

More blabering BS.

The local politicians like the status quo because it works and they can continue to take money from both WN and AA. I know of fund raising events where local congressmen have tables purchased by both AA and WN and won't sit at either, they'd rather just act like the whole thing didn't exsist.

[post="311600"][/post]​

Who do you think the lobbyists appeal to? The politicians. You can't tell me that in the era of Enron-busting we allow a protectionist legislation without persuasion from corporate lobbyists! That is how these companies get things done. WN has theirs as well but AMRs have deeper roots and much more power in protecting the WA.

No blabbering BS...you substantiated it with your followup paragraph.

 

[eolesen]

Or maybe (yes, I know this is a stretch) the politicians just aren't as emotionally attached to all the hoopla that Southwest, DFW, and AA are making in trying to win the war of public opinion. Perhaps they understand the legal aspects of it well enough to simply leave things as they are, and don't want to interfere in what is really a local issue. God forbid you piss off Kay Bailey Hutchison or Tom Delay, and now they start to meddle with issues in Rhode Island or Virginia....

 

[corl737]

If you haven't looked at the Boyd Group's take on the Wright Amendment repeal/retention it is an interesting read. In their opinion, both sides (AA/DFW and SWA) have taken such extreme positions that the reality cannot help but fall in the middle. In their 52-page publication (link below), they theorize - without any emotional attachment to either side - a very plausible result for either scenario.

This link is on SWA's "Set Love Free" website's "Reports" page. (DFW's site doesn't have links to any independent reports.) Follow this link: www.setlovefree.com/reports.html
then click on "Michael Boyd Study" to download the .pdf file.

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

Who do you think the lobbyists appeal to? The politicians. You can't tell me that in the era of Enron-busting we allow a protectionist legislation without persuasion from corporate lobbyists! That is how these companies get things done. WN has theirs as well but AMRs have deeper roots and much more power in protecting the WA.

No blabbering BS...you substantiated it with your followup paragraph.

[post="311715"][/post]​

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ch. 12,

Just because I agree with you, does'nt mean you and I are right.

But I've always believed "If it LOOKS like a duck, QUACKS like a duck, and WALKS like a duck, IT'S A DUCK !!

So in my opinion the "deck is stacked in AA's favor" (Which by the way, I'm VERY happy about) !!

But my only point, is that "IT IS what it IS" , and I don't see it changed ANY time soon !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, $5 , and my opinion, will get you a bottle of "suds" in 90 +% of saloon's .

NH/BB's

 

[eolesen]

Looks like any action on Wright won't happen in this legislative year. Senate is going to hold hearings on Wright, and that means that the likelyhood of something being tacked onto an existing bill is extremely low.

Hearings aren't scheduled yet, but should be interesting, since both sides will get to present their case. Even there, hearings don't mean that there will be any action taken, but they do provide a more official record to refer to than a couple of extremely biased studies or kiss-up articles and editorials appearing in a lapdog newspaper.

 

[OutInLeftField]

It seems to me that American and United both are doing a decent job competing against Southwest's LARGE operation out of MDW. AA is simply grasping at every straw to protect its DFW cash-cow. Hey, I would expect them to do nothing less. But let's call a spade a spade. Stop the thinly-veiled self-serving "studies" on the doomsday impact of the repeal of the Wright Ammendment and instead work on a compromise that everyone can live with.

For years, AA has ridden the arrogant wave of their "fortress" hub at DFW. Unfortunately, that fortress was built on the shoulders of restricted competition from Love Field. Methinks that if AA were forced to do battle with an unrestricted Love Field, their fortress would be no longer. Welcome to the 21st Century, folks.

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

It seems to me that American and United both are doing a decent job competing against Southwest's LARGE operation out of MDW. AA is simply grasping at every straw to protect its DFW cash-cow. Hey, I would expect them to do nothing less. But let's call a spade a spade. Stop the thinly-veiled self-serving "studies" on the doomsday impact of the repeal of the Wright Ammendment and instead work on a compromise that everyone can live with.

For years, AA has ridden the arrogant wave of their "fortress" hub at DFW. Unfortunately, that fortress was built on the shoulders of restricted competition from Love Field. Methinks that if AA were forced to do battle with an unrestricted Love Field, their fortress would be no longer. Welcome to the 21st Century, folks.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Left Field"

I guess I agree with you too.

The deck IS stacked in AA's favor.

"BUT-BUT-BUT'

It all comes down to who has THE most "political Juice", and that is CLEARLY AA, which is why NOTHING(of any substance) will change, with regard to the "W A "

It's THAT simple !!!!!!!!!

NH/BB's