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...DFW was not designed for Southwest's unique, non-hub, operating style...
If you want to play politics, fine, but please don't lie and say that DFW will be destroyed if the Wright Amendment is repealed.If you want to play politics, fine, but please don't lie and say that DFW operations won't work for Southwest or even an ATA codeshare.
JS said:If you want to play politics, fine, but please don't lie and say that DFW operations won't work for Southwest or even an ATA codeshare.[post="242220"][/post]
From the Dallas Morning News:
But Southwest deliberately excluded ATA routes from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport from the deal because it's resolved to lift flight restrictions at its home airport, Dallas Love Field.
"We don't want to confuse the need to change the Wright amendment in any way," Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly said in a conference call with reporters Thursday.
"We want to grow our presence in Dallas, and we want to grow at Love Field exclusively," he said.
Busdrvr said:Guess CAL and UAL were smart enough to demand the old DIA be bulldozed when the new one was built. Should have happened at Luv. Repeal the amendment if and only if all the gates go back on the market and are bid out at their market value. SWA knew the rules when they set up shop there.
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KCFlyer said:Bussie...the rules didn't exist when Southwest set up shop there. The WA was enacted several years after Southwest set up shop there...in other words, there was NOTHING on the books limiting where they could fly when they "set up shop". It was only after they started flying outside the borders of Texas that Jim Wright came to the "rescue" of DFW.
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The original plan was to close Love Field. Southwest convinced the feds to let them stay since they weren't around when the bond agreements were signed.
The next set of rules was that Love Field would be limited to intrastate flights only, as that would not be subject to federal regulation as dictated by the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution.
Southwest brought the Wright Amendment onto itself when they chose to start interstate flights to MSY, and Congress got involved to clarify the rules about Love Field. Congress could have said "no interstate flights, period", so it was a partial victory for Southwest.
More rules ... AA and everyone else were forced out of Love Field. They have never been allowed to return to Love Field (though AA has done a few exception flights).
Yet more rules ... the Love Field master plan limits Love Field to 32 gates, ensuring that if both the Wright Amendment and the DFW bond agreements were repealed but not the 32 gate DAL limit, Southwest would still have a Love Field fortress hub.
Southwest had better not get too cocky or they may be sorry they ever upset their prized Love Field situation that they have almost entirely to themselves.
To be clear, DFW's terminals are well suited for O&D as air travel existed in the early 70s. At that time, it was unheard of for an airline to have more than a dozen gates (except perhaps at JFK?). The typical behavior of airports was at most a handful of gates for an airline, with the dominant player(s) getting a couple handfuls.sfb said:While I agree that DFW's terminals are well-suited for O&D passengers IF you know your departure gate in advance, being in Terminal E on the same side of the airfield as the majority of the AA hub is certainly not conducive to efficient operations. And if you end up landing on 17L, you could be in for a 15-20 minute taxi in to your gate.
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mweiss said:To be clear, DFW's terminals are well suited for O&D as air travel existed in the early 70s. At that time, it was unheard of for an airline to have more than a dozen gates (except perhaps at JFK?). The typical behavior of airports was at most a handful of gates for an airline, with the dominant player(s) getting a couple handfuls.