Wright Amendment Poll #2
- Thread starter dl764
- Start date
Check out this article from the DMN. Seems to me that it becomes more and more obvious to the lay-person that DFW and AMR are in bed together (duh). It is nice that the airport will give $$ incentives to those carriers flying widebodies internationally...hmmm...I wonder WHO might fly 80%+ of those?? NK scales down due to typical AMR backlash in DFW but the airport blames fleet?! Now DFW provides supplemental income to AMR while complaining that fees at DAL that are lower than at DFW are "unfair"? Give me a break. How long will the corruption at DFW continue? Let's call a spade a spade and actually have a free market...
SPIN ALERT - AA/AMR has gotten minimal CIP funding and only for the 8 or so international routes that it has started since 1999, and only 1 of those routes is on a wide body aircraft.
Per the "Love Field Master Plan" there is a 32 gate limit for operations at Love. And only 250 movements allowed daily for commercial passenger flights. So Yes, DAL is slot restricted and gate limited.
AA - 3 gates
CO - 3 gates
WN - 21 gates (14 in use/7 unused)
Gates not used or leased to any carriers 5 all in the old Legend terminal. The gates that are not leased can only accomodate RJ's or planes smaller than DC-9-30's due to being hard standed to the building and proximity to the next gate.
ramper_in_las
Senior
- Jul 13, 2004
- 310
- 6
wouldn't that be the same thing that AA does at DFW??? It seems that any airline that decides to fly from DFW the are put out of business. :blink:
If Wright is repealed, then the master plan should not limit the number of gates at the airport. It should allow for as many gates as the space allows. In addition, why limit the flights to only 250 movements? This limit should also be removed to allow the airport to handle as much capacity as it can.
What would be an estimate of the max number of movements that Love could safely handle? Would it be anywhere close to enough to allow AA to operate a small hub there?
That would be feasible if the feds remove Love Field from Dallas city property (a new city, "Doitorelse"?) a.k.a. a revolt.
Love Field's limits were already recognized and decided 50 years ago (fifty years!!!) There is a perfectly good airport with plenty of capacity 11 miles away, and Love Field is not going to be expanded, period, end of story.
How many aircraft movements was Love handling in early 1974, right before DFW opened? I'm sure it was well over 250. AA, Braniff, and Delta all had large operations there, along with Continental, Eastern, Frontier, Mexicana, Ozark, and Texas Int'l. And at least one of the early Texas commuters (Rio Airways).
Oh...and a li'l three-or-four-plane operation called Southwest!
I'd bet that DAL in early '74 safely handled maybe 500 daily commercial aircraft movements.
Anyone got the stats?
From your postings, it sounds like you would be all for closing Love field. I happen to be in agreement with that. However, wouldn't you agree that if Wright is repealed, then the airport must be allowed to grow to capacity? Anything short of that allows Southwest to maintain its monopoly there.
According to the airside-analysis of in the master plan, the max operations to be handled by the airport is 476,000 per year. 476,000 / 365 = 1304 operations per day. 1304 / 2 = 652 departures per day.
http://www.dallas-lovefield.com/pdf/master...ideAnalysis.pdf
According to the Master Plan Q&A, "Pre-existing terminal space remaining from Love Field’s busiest years is believed to be capable of supporting as many as 55 gates."
http://www.dallaslovefieldmasterplan.com/Docs/MP%20Q&A.pdf
If Wright is repealed, the 250 limit and 32 gate limit should be removed to allow as much competition as possible.
A common myth...
The 1968 Bond paperwork mentioned each city endeavoring to close their respective airports to commercial traffic, if legally permissible.
It was never the intent of Dallas to close Love completely, just to commercial traffic, again, if legally permissible. Without commercial traffic, Love still had GA and corporate ops.
It turned out that selectively closing Love to commercial traffic wasn't "legally permissible" as ruled upon by the Federal Courts, including that big one in DC. The folks who wrote the bond paperwork years earlier had to have at least suspected this as a possibility, otherwise their if legally permissible language wouldn't have been in there.
Good point. In that case, Love Field needs to be closed completely. That's really not such a bad idea considering the location of the field. That much land three miles from downtown Dallas would be an excellent place for urban development.
ELP_WN_Psgr
Senior
- Nov 29, 2003
- 419
- 0
I wish SCCutler would chime in with all of the legalities as to why Dallas can't close Love Field completely.
But let's correct a few things.
I think DAL is actually considered to be 8, rather than 3, miles from downtown.
The location of Dallas Love Field really has it serving as an effective buffer between the Park Cities (which have a lot of pricey homes occupied by a lot of people with money, clout, and a desire to keep Love Field as a buffer) and what can best be described as "the Harry Hines area."
There's a lot of people with money and clout who keep the private jets at Love Field and even though Laura Miller is mayor, and city hall is not run by the Dedmans and Stemmonses and Carpenters any more.....people with money and clout in Dallas still often get their way.
A pretty good argument can be made that Love Field is at its best and highest use as an airport rather than anything else. We know it did not really fare too well as a movie theater/skating rink.
But here's an even better question - why in the world would you want to shut down existing, decent quality infrastructure and disrupt commerce only to turn around and have to build additional facilities to the tune of megabucks at a more remote facility - facilities which will cost more money causing airlines to pop the fare up a few bucks which will decrease demand which means less business and commerce in our community.
Even if you left Wright in place....forcing the short haul to DFW would result in even more evisceration of short haul traffic. Less short haul traffic = fewer travelers = less revenue flowing in.
To me, a wiser approach would be to not build new facilities (terminals, gates, runways) at either airport until both were at capacity - then build new stuff ONLY at DFW.
You might not be able to exclude Southwest (or other) airlines from using Love Field so long as it remains open as an airport...but you could sure as heck refuse to build additional gate or terminal space there.
Did the city try urban development? (that's a lot more than an ice skating rink) Oops, never mind, Love Field wasn't ever closed, was it? Also, in the 1960's and 1970's people were moving from Dallas to the countryside in places like Grand Prarie and Irving, so there wasn't much interest in turning Love Field into usable city land. Now there is.
Huh? If Wright remained in place, the short haul traffic would be out of DFW where there are no restrictions.
Wait until DFW is at capacity before adding anything? That's dumb.
