jimntx
Veteran
KCFlyer said:
Well, for starters AA has access and flights to/from MDW. AA does not have access to Love. That part of the WA, SW wants to keep. They want Love to be their publicly-supported private airport.
'wrong' Amendment Back In The News
- Thread starter swflyer
- Start date
Well, for starters AA has access and flights to/from MDW. AA does not have access to Love. That part of the WA, SW wants to keep. They want Love to be their publicly-supported private airport.
Where does all of this stuff about "AA isn't allowed at DAL" come from?!?! Sure, they aren't allowed to fly DAL to LAX, DAL to ORD, etc, but nobody is. AA is more than allowed to fly from DAL if they follow the same restrictions as ALL OTHER CARRIERS there. They can fly to piddly airports in desolate states or they can rip out all but 56 seats and fly ANYWHERE. Oh wait...seems I remember them doing that just a few years ago to put an airline out of business...er....I mean it was their 6 month business plan that has since miraculously changed.
Fact is it is fiction that AA cannot fly out of Love and I don't know where that comes from. They choose not to b/c the WA is ridiculously limiting.
Fact is it is fiction that AA cannot fly out of Love and I don't know where that comes from. They choose not to b/c the WA is ridiculously limiting.
KCFlyer
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jimntx said:
Really? What about the Fokkers that had the AA (not eagle) logo on the sides that were flying out of there to Austin...and the aforementioned Fokkers reconfigured to 56 seats that sported an AA logo on them jetting off to places like New York? How dare AA flaunt the rules of the Wright Amendment so flagrantly. 🙄
JS said:
Simply not true. The only airlines which signed the agreement to move all operations to DFW were the ones actually serving DAL in 1968 (so, Braniff, American, Delta, Texas International, Continental, Frontier (I), Eastern, and I suppose Southern; there were eight). Hypothetically, US Airways (or its predecessors) never would have signed the agreement and could serve DAL if the Wright Amendment permitted it. In any case, the DFW Airport Board has seemed to have little interest in holding AA to that agreement in the past.
Guess what? AA *did* operate MD-80's to AUS back around 1998 or 1999.for a brief time -- they downgauged to Eagle ERJ's pretty quickly because the flights were practically empty. And the 56-seat F100's that they operated from DAL to compete with Legend were AA mainline, not Eagle.
I think they'd happily agree to that, actually. The problem at DAL for the other airlines would be putting up the money to build the terminal facilities, since I expect the city of Dallas would tell them they're on their own.
Shoot, FLL has less airfield capacity than DAL and the vast majority of its air carrier traffic uses the long east-west runway, but they seem to do OK with roughly 60 gates. IAH had close to 70 gates available before they built the third runway back in the 80's. DAL has two widely-separated runways that are both over 7500'. Heck, Braniff used to send 747's out of DAL.
But DAL is only more convenient to part of the Metroplex, just like HOU is only more convenient to part of the Houston area. You seem to feel that there would be this rush by other airlines to serve DAL -- but how does this make sense in light of service patterns at IAH vs. HOU or ORD vs. MDW?
The New York Times, December 2, 2004
ECONOMIC SCENE
Hurdle Faced by Southwest Airlines Shows Drawbacks of Protectionist Legislation, by Virginia Postrel
When I asked my editor whether I could be reimbursed for my travel to the American Economic Association meetings this year in Philadelphia, he agreed, with a caveat.
"Please try to get the cheapest air fare you can," he wrote in an e-mail message. "Southwest flies Dallas-Philly doesn't it?"
Well, no. It doesn't, even though both the company and its passengers wish it did.
Southwest is based at Love Field, not far from downtown Dallas. But it cannot fly from Dallas to Philadelphia - or Chicago or Las Vegas or Los Angeles or Baltimore-Washington or a host of other popular destinations - without violating federal law.
Like my editor, most people outside Dallas have no idea of this peculiar restriction. The so-called Wright Amendment, named for the longtime congressman from Fort Worth, Jim Wright, was intended to protect the newly built Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. What it did was limit not the amount of traffic at Love Field (local rules take care of that) but where the airplanes could fly. It is a costly example of protectionist legislation.
In mid-November, Southwest called for the repeal of the law, reversing its longtime "passionately neutral" stance and igniting a heated local debate.
Air travelers flooded The Dallas Morning News with pro-repeal letters, while Dallas-Fort Worth airport officials and many local politicians lined up to support the Wright Amendment.
Under that 1979 law, full-size planes may fly from Love Field only to adjacent states, plus Alabama, Mississippi and Kansas, which were added in 1997. (Planes with fewer than 56 seats are exempt.) Anyone wanting to travel somewhere else has to drive another 20 miles to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and pay the higher prices that American Airlines charges at what industry analysts call its "fortress hub." Both Dallas-Fort Worth and American Airlines support the Wright Amendment.
Although originally enacted to help the fledgling Dallas-Fort Worth airport, the law has outlived that purpose. Today, that airport is one of the world's largest, while Love's capacity is severely limited by its size and location.
"The premise of the Wright Amendment was an infant-industry argument," said Steven A. Morrison, a transportation economist at Northeastern University.
"That's 25 years ago," he said. "That's some infant."
In September, the Tennessee Congressional delegation proposed a bill that would allow flights to their state from Love Field as well. Southwest flies into Nashville, and the airport there would like to offer flights to Dallas.
It is easy to understand why travelers would like more chances to fly Southwest. Competition from the low-cost airline drives down fares.
Indeed, Professor Morrison and a Brookings Institution economist, Clifford Winston, have estimated that competition from Southwest accounted for $9.7 billion of the annual fare savings from the change in real fares since deregulation - nearly 40 percent of the total. Their estimate was published in the 2000 book "Deregulation of Network Industries: What's Next?" (Brookings Institution).
Although the Tennessee lawmakers reopened the subject, their action was not what precipitated Southwest's new opposition to the law. Rather, Delta Air Lines is eliminating most of its flights from Dallas-Fort Worth, and Southwest sees a new opportunity.
"Delta's planned exit will leave a void that we could fill, except for the Wright Amendment," Gary C. Kelly, the chief executive of Southwest, wrote in a recent op-ed piece for The Dallas Morning News.
"Consumers would benefit twice because we could add flights to new markets from Love at significantly lower fares, and DFW fares would then come down, too," he said.
While self-serving, that claim is borne out by recent economic research.
In an October working paper, Professor Morrison, Dr. Winston and Vikram Maheshri, also of the Brookings Institution, looked at what happened to fares and flight frequency when an airline left a market.
Economists studying competition usually assume all companies are the same, leading to the simple conclusion that more competitors equals more competition. In this research, however, the economists examined the differences among specific airlines, calculating how they responded to the entrance or exit of other companies.
Using data from 1990 to 2000, they were able to calculate how much travelers would gain or lose if a given airline left the market. That calculation depends not just on which airline is in the market but on which airline might enter to fill a newly opened niche.
"Your value is in a sense determined by how replaceable you are," Dr. Winston said. "Or more to the point, who are you keeping out of markets?"
The differences are dramatic. Southwest adds nearly $20 billion a year to consumer welfare, while American subtracts $3.7 billion, the economists concluded. In theory, at least, travelers would be better off if American (or US Airways) disappeared altogether.
"I would be cautious about immediately jumping up and down and saying, 'Let's force some of these guys out of there,' " Dr. Winston said. But, he said, the result is "a signal saying, 'Look, you guys cut your costs and earn a place at the table or if you're going to go, good riddance.' "
Certainly the message to Dallas lawmakers is clear: If you care about your constituents, the traveling public, repeal the Wright Amendment and give real competition a chance. Stop propping up American's fares and limiting Southwest's schedule.
Whether local politicians will listen remains to be seen. In the past, American's political influence has defeated attempts to repeal the Wright Amendment. But American, based in Fort Worth and a unit of AMR, is not what it used to be. Southwest, also a big local employer, has passed it as the largest airline transporting passengers within the United States. The low-cost airline's consistent profits contrast sharply with American's near bankruptcy after Sept. 11.
Still, Dr. Winston cautions, Dallas travelers should not hope for much lobbying from Southwest. The airline, he said, "did not grow up spending their whole time lobbying the government and seeing the government as their way to become competitive." He said he suspected that "Southwest is going to make their position known and let the chips fall where they may."
"There has got to be an elected official who jumps on this and says, 'I really want to push this forward,' " he added, "or it isn't going to happen."
ECONOMIC SCENE
Hurdle Faced by Southwest Airlines Shows Drawbacks of Protectionist Legislation, by Virginia Postrel
When I asked my editor whether I could be reimbursed for my travel to the American Economic Association meetings this year in Philadelphia, he agreed, with a caveat.
"Please try to get the cheapest air fare you can," he wrote in an e-mail message. "Southwest flies Dallas-Philly doesn't it?"
Well, no. It doesn't, even though both the company and its passengers wish it did.
Southwest is based at Love Field, not far from downtown Dallas. But it cannot fly from Dallas to Philadelphia - or Chicago or Las Vegas or Los Angeles or Baltimore-Washington or a host of other popular destinations - without violating federal law.
Like my editor, most people outside Dallas have no idea of this peculiar restriction. The so-called Wright Amendment, named for the longtime congressman from Fort Worth, Jim Wright, was intended to protect the newly built Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. What it did was limit not the amount of traffic at Love Field (local rules take care of that) but where the airplanes could fly. It is a costly example of protectionist legislation.
In mid-November, Southwest called for the repeal of the law, reversing its longtime "passionately neutral" stance and igniting a heated local debate.
Air travelers flooded The Dallas Morning News with pro-repeal letters, while Dallas-Fort Worth airport officials and many local politicians lined up to support the Wright Amendment.
Under that 1979 law, full-size planes may fly from Love Field only to adjacent states, plus Alabama, Mississippi and Kansas, which were added in 1997. (Planes with fewer than 56 seats are exempt.) Anyone wanting to travel somewhere else has to drive another 20 miles to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and pay the higher prices that American Airlines charges at what industry analysts call its "fortress hub." Both Dallas-Fort Worth and American Airlines support the Wright Amendment.
Although originally enacted to help the fledgling Dallas-Fort Worth airport, the law has outlived that purpose. Today, that airport is one of the world's largest, while Love's capacity is severely limited by its size and location.
"The premise of the Wright Amendment was an infant-industry argument," said Steven A. Morrison, a transportation economist at Northeastern University.
"That's 25 years ago," he said. "That's some infant."
In September, the Tennessee Congressional delegation proposed a bill that would allow flights to their state from Love Field as well. Southwest flies into Nashville, and the airport there would like to offer flights to Dallas.
It is easy to understand why travelers would like more chances to fly Southwest. Competition from the low-cost airline drives down fares.
Indeed, Professor Morrison and a Brookings Institution economist, Clifford Winston, have estimated that competition from Southwest accounted for $9.7 billion of the annual fare savings from the change in real fares since deregulation - nearly 40 percent of the total. Their estimate was published in the 2000 book "Deregulation of Network Industries: What's Next?" (Brookings Institution).
Although the Tennessee lawmakers reopened the subject, their action was not what precipitated Southwest's new opposition to the law. Rather, Delta Air Lines is eliminating most of its flights from Dallas-Fort Worth, and Southwest sees a new opportunity.
"Delta's planned exit will leave a void that we could fill, except for the Wright Amendment," Gary C. Kelly, the chief executive of Southwest, wrote in a recent op-ed piece for The Dallas Morning News.
"Consumers would benefit twice because we could add flights to new markets from Love at significantly lower fares, and DFW fares would then come down, too," he said.
While self-serving, that claim is borne out by recent economic research.
In an October working paper, Professor Morrison, Dr. Winston and Vikram Maheshri, also of the Brookings Institution, looked at what happened to fares and flight frequency when an airline left a market.
Economists studying competition usually assume all companies are the same, leading to the simple conclusion that more competitors equals more competition. In this research, however, the economists examined the differences among specific airlines, calculating how they responded to the entrance or exit of other companies.
Using data from 1990 to 2000, they were able to calculate how much travelers would gain or lose if a given airline left the market. That calculation depends not just on which airline is in the market but on which airline might enter to fill a newly opened niche.
"Your value is in a sense determined by how replaceable you are," Dr. Winston said. "Or more to the point, who are you keeping out of markets?"
The differences are dramatic. Southwest adds nearly $20 billion a year to consumer welfare, while American subtracts $3.7 billion, the economists concluded. In theory, at least, travelers would be better off if American (or US Airways) disappeared altogether.
"I would be cautious about immediately jumping up and down and saying, 'Let's force some of these guys out of there,' " Dr. Winston said. But, he said, the result is "a signal saying, 'Look, you guys cut your costs and earn a place at the table or if you're going to go, good riddance.' "
Certainly the message to Dallas lawmakers is clear: If you care about your constituents, the traveling public, repeal the Wright Amendment and give real competition a chance. Stop propping up American's fares and limiting Southwest's schedule.
Whether local politicians will listen remains to be seen. In the past, American's political influence has defeated attempts to repeal the Wright Amendment. But American, based in Fort Worth and a unit of AMR, is not what it used to be. Southwest, also a big local employer, has passed it as the largest airline transporting passengers within the United States. The low-cost airline's consistent profits contrast sharply with American's near bankruptcy after Sept. 11.
Still, Dr. Winston cautions, Dallas travelers should not hope for much lobbying from Southwest. The airline, he said, "did not grow up spending their whole time lobbying the government and seeing the government as their way to become competitive." He said he suspected that "Southwest is going to make their position known and let the chips fall where they may."
"There has got to be an elected official who jumps on this and says, 'I really want to push this forward,' " he added, "or it isn't going to happen."
Kev3188 said:
shame on you. the amendment only protects the legacy carrier AA and its super high ticket prices. i welcome any airline to DFW with the wright amendment stripped. time for a letter campaign to get rid of Wright!! its Wrong!
😀 The Game is Afoot 😀
Southwest creeping onto D.C. radar
Airline may raise its lobbying profile to fight Wright law
05:44 PM CST on Saturday, December 4, 2004
By VIKAS BAJAJ / The Dallas Morning News
Southwest Airlines Co. says it spreads the love far and wide.
But in a battle over where the carrier can fly from its home airport, Dallas Love Field, Southwest remains an underdog by traditional measures of political power, legislative experts say.
"Southwest has not been an airline to throw around a lot of money and weight in Washington," said Patrick Murphy, a Washington-based aviation consultant and a former Department of Transportation official.
Passions are running high from Capitol Hill to Fort Worth City Hall over Southwest's 3-week-old opposition to the Wright amendment. Chief executive Gary Kelly upped the ante Friday by promising a "grass-roots campaign" to repeal it.
To overturn the 1979 law that restricts flights from Love Field to Texas and nearby states, Southwest and its allies will need to convince Congress that Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport no longer needs protection. The amendment's defenders are adamant that it's still necessary.
Southwest has vastly more clout than it did 25 years ago, and Mr. Kelly says he intends to use it.
A low-cost pioneer, Southwest is now the nation's largest airline by total domestic passengers and one of the few that are consistently profitable. The carrier, which markets itself as "The House That Love Built," cultivates a culture aimed at winning over its customers' hearts.
"I am not expecting that we are going to have any extraordinary legal fees and lobbying efforts to undertake here," Mr. Kelly said. "We have got resources, so if need be, if we have to mount a more serious fight, we have got the wherewithal to see this fight through."
This is an important change for Southwest, which hasn't worked very hard at making friends in Washington.
Federal records show the airline and its executives make smaller political campaign contributions and spend less on lobbying than opponents, including American Airlines Inc., D/FW Airport, the cities of Fort Worth and Dallas, and even American's pilots' union.
Fort Worth-based American, which could lose customers and be forced to cut fares if Love restrictions are lifted, has given more than 3 ½ times as much to federal campaigns and spent 15 times as much on lobbying Congress in the last 5 ½ years as Southwest, according to federal disclosure reports.
American, the world's largest airline, spent $4.1 million on lobbying last year compared with $240,000 for Southwest. American's political action committee and executives gave federal campaigns $299,196 last year vs. $133,030 for Southwest.
The airlines' money has largely been spent on issues such as aviation security, the post 9-11 airline bailout package and other industry concerns.
A senior American official said that it's presumptuous to assume that pro-Wright sources would win this battle on the basis of past lobbying. Dan Garton, executive vice president of marketing, noted that Southwest is the nation's largest airline by market capitalization.
"We believe we have sort of the legal agreement and the moral commitments behind us," Mr. Garton said. "In terms of strength, I don't know if I want to make any immediate bets on that. Southwest at this point in their history has tremendous financial resources. They are the 800-pound gorilla."
For its part, D/FW served notice of its willingness for political combat.
"This will be our highest priority in the coming congressional term, to avoid and put to bed the whole idea of repealing the Wright amendment," said Kevin Cox, D/FW's chief operating officer, who was in Washington last week.
Mr. Cox asserted that Southwest has already scored a victory in some ways with its public change of heart about the Wright amendment because its statements are keeping other low-fare carriers from launching service at D/FW.
Advantage: status quo
In most legislative contests, "the opponents of change have a lot of advantages to proponents of change," Mr. Murphy said.
And Mr. Kelly acknowledges that Southwest is fighting an uphill battle.
But, he said, the airline eventually would triumph because public sentiment is largely against the Wright amendment.
"It's going to be hard to ignore the voice of the people on this because the people overwhelmingly favor changing the Wright amendment," he said.
The airline could prevail, experts say, if it mobilizes a coalition that includes:
•Powerful lawmakers and airport officials from other states who would like to see Southwest expand service to their constituents. The executive director of the Tampa airport hadn't heard from Southwest as of last week but said he would take the matter to his board if asked.
•Dallas consumers and businesses expecting cheaper fares if Southwest offers long-haul routes from Love Field.
Mr. Kelly said the airline is trying to gin up public pressure after taking the pulse of Congress and assessing public feedback in the last three weeks.
Southwest says it will channel public opposition from travelers through a Web site, which will include historical background and information about how residents can contact their representatives and senators. It will also commission a study to highlight how low airfares from long-haul Love flights would benefit the region economically.
Delta's departure
D/FW released its own study last week to bolster its case against a Wright repeal. Economists hired by the airport said Delta Air Lines Inc.'s decision to close its hub at the airport would cost the North Texas economy $782 million.
Delta's departure is one of three chief reasons cited by D/FW and its backers – which include many prominent Texas lawmakers – to keep restrictions at Love. The other two are D/FW's assumption of $3 billion in new debt and the 2005 opening of a new international terminal.
"With that report showing instability in the revenue stream at D/FW, this may not be the best time to add another potentially destabilizing factor," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican.
"I am going to do more than vote against it," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman and a close ally of President Bush. "I will do everything I can to make sure it doesn't pass."
A group of Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce officials presented their case to Sen. John Cornyn after he spoke at an unrelated breakfast event last week.
"My default position on matters like this are pro-consumer," said Mr. Cornyn, a Republican. But because the Wright amendment "has created a set of expectations and a status quo that people have come to expect back at D/FW, we ought to take that into account."
Still, Southwest won at least one political victory in the past without even trying. It stayed on the sidelines, experts noted, when Congress loosened the Wright restrictions.
In 1997, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., led a fight to allow nonstop flights between Love Field and Kansas, Alabama and Mississippi. Originally, the Wright amendment restricted flights to Texas and its contiguous states – New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
"You have to remember that the circumstances were even more difficult when the Shelby amendment passed," said Ed Faberman, president of the Air Carriers Association, a trade group for discount airlines.
"While I understand positions and strength and money thrown around Washington, the fact is that we have a different aviation environment."
Out-of-state help
Mr. Faberman sees Southwest getting some help from lawmakers, especially those with smaller airports that could benefit from direct service to Dallas.
Tennessee's House delegation filed a bill in September that would include their state inside the Love Field perimeter.
Other out-of-state lawmakers who could help Southwest include Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Mr. Shelby. Both have opposed the Wright amendment.
Southwest also expects to tap business and leisure travelers in North Texas.
One idea under consideration, Mr. Kelly said, is a survey of area air travelers.
Friends of Love Field, an anti-Wright group led by former Dallas City Council member Jerry Bartos, said it found majority support for lifting the Wright amendment in a 1999 survey of Dallas County and Tarrant County residents.
Mr. Bartos, who is retired and not involved in the current fight, said travelers' concerns often are ignored in the political process because "consumers don't write enormous checks to congressional leaders."
But the area's biggest businesses, which pay for employee travel, often do.
Recent studies have shown they may have a reason to demand change.
Dallas' average business airfare of $593 is 48 percent higher than the $402 average in North America, according to American Express Co.'s eClipse Advisors.
The North Dallas Chamber of Commerce has appointed a 13-member committee led by Steve Joiner, an aviation consultant, to craft a stance on the Wright amendment.
"There's an increasing constituency for a repeal of the Wright amendment, and it's no longer just here in North Texas," said Steve Taylor, the chamber's president. "As a community, we need to have a thoughtful position on this."
What might a Wright repeal look like?
Experts say it could be introduced as a traditional stand-alone bill, like the Tennessee proposal. Or it may be tacked onto an unrelated measure as the Shelby amendment was.
Mr. Barton said that he doesn't expect a stand-alone bill to get very far and that he will be watching for more covert efforts. "We will just have to watch out to make sure it doesn't happen."
Staff writers Suzanne Marta in Dallas and Robert Dodge in Washington contributed to this report.
Southwest creeping onto D.C. radar
Airline may raise its lobbying profile to fight Wright law
05:44 PM CST on Saturday, December 4, 2004
By VIKAS BAJAJ / The Dallas Morning News
Southwest Airlines Co. says it spreads the love far and wide.
But in a battle over where the carrier can fly from its home airport, Dallas Love Field, Southwest remains an underdog by traditional measures of political power, legislative experts say.
"Southwest has not been an airline to throw around a lot of money and weight in Washington," said Patrick Murphy, a Washington-based aviation consultant and a former Department of Transportation official.
Passions are running high from Capitol Hill to Fort Worth City Hall over Southwest's 3-week-old opposition to the Wright amendment. Chief executive Gary Kelly upped the ante Friday by promising a "grass-roots campaign" to repeal it.
To overturn the 1979 law that restricts flights from Love Field to Texas and nearby states, Southwest and its allies will need to convince Congress that Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport no longer needs protection. The amendment's defenders are adamant that it's still necessary.
Southwest has vastly more clout than it did 25 years ago, and Mr. Kelly says he intends to use it.
A low-cost pioneer, Southwest is now the nation's largest airline by total domestic passengers and one of the few that are consistently profitable. The carrier, which markets itself as "The House That Love Built," cultivates a culture aimed at winning over its customers' hearts.
"I am not expecting that we are going to have any extraordinary legal fees and lobbying efforts to undertake here," Mr. Kelly said. "We have got resources, so if need be, if we have to mount a more serious fight, we have got the wherewithal to see this fight through."
This is an important change for Southwest, which hasn't worked very hard at making friends in Washington.
Federal records show the airline and its executives make smaller political campaign contributions and spend less on lobbying than opponents, including American Airlines Inc., D/FW Airport, the cities of Fort Worth and Dallas, and even American's pilots' union.
Fort Worth-based American, which could lose customers and be forced to cut fares if Love restrictions are lifted, has given more than 3 ½ times as much to federal campaigns and spent 15 times as much on lobbying Congress in the last 5 ½ years as Southwest, according to federal disclosure reports.
American, the world's largest airline, spent $4.1 million on lobbying last year compared with $240,000 for Southwest. American's political action committee and executives gave federal campaigns $299,196 last year vs. $133,030 for Southwest.
The airlines' money has largely been spent on issues such as aviation security, the post 9-11 airline bailout package and other industry concerns.
A senior American official said that it's presumptuous to assume that pro-Wright sources would win this battle on the basis of past lobbying. Dan Garton, executive vice president of marketing, noted that Southwest is the nation's largest airline by market capitalization.
"We believe we have sort of the legal agreement and the moral commitments behind us," Mr. Garton said. "In terms of strength, I don't know if I want to make any immediate bets on that. Southwest at this point in their history has tremendous financial resources. They are the 800-pound gorilla."
For its part, D/FW served notice of its willingness for political combat.
"This will be our highest priority in the coming congressional term, to avoid and put to bed the whole idea of repealing the Wright amendment," said Kevin Cox, D/FW's chief operating officer, who was in Washington last week.
Mr. Cox asserted that Southwest has already scored a victory in some ways with its public change of heart about the Wright amendment because its statements are keeping other low-fare carriers from launching service at D/FW.
Advantage: status quo
In most legislative contests, "the opponents of change have a lot of advantages to proponents of change," Mr. Murphy said.
And Mr. Kelly acknowledges that Southwest is fighting an uphill battle.
But, he said, the airline eventually would triumph because public sentiment is largely against the Wright amendment.
"It's going to be hard to ignore the voice of the people on this because the people overwhelmingly favor changing the Wright amendment," he said.
The airline could prevail, experts say, if it mobilizes a coalition that includes:
•Powerful lawmakers and airport officials from other states who would like to see Southwest expand service to their constituents. The executive director of the Tampa airport hadn't heard from Southwest as of last week but said he would take the matter to his board if asked.
•Dallas consumers and businesses expecting cheaper fares if Southwest offers long-haul routes from Love Field.
Mr. Kelly said the airline is trying to gin up public pressure after taking the pulse of Congress and assessing public feedback in the last three weeks.
Southwest says it will channel public opposition from travelers through a Web site, which will include historical background and information about how residents can contact their representatives and senators. It will also commission a study to highlight how low airfares from long-haul Love flights would benefit the region economically.
Delta's departure
D/FW released its own study last week to bolster its case against a Wright repeal. Economists hired by the airport said Delta Air Lines Inc.'s decision to close its hub at the airport would cost the North Texas economy $782 million.
Delta's departure is one of three chief reasons cited by D/FW and its backers – which include many prominent Texas lawmakers – to keep restrictions at Love. The other two are D/FW's assumption of $3 billion in new debt and the 2005 opening of a new international terminal.
"With that report showing instability in the revenue stream at D/FW, this may not be the best time to add another potentially destabilizing factor," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican.
"I am going to do more than vote against it," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman and a close ally of President Bush. "I will do everything I can to make sure it doesn't pass."
A group of Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce officials presented their case to Sen. John Cornyn after he spoke at an unrelated breakfast event last week.
"My default position on matters like this are pro-consumer," said Mr. Cornyn, a Republican. But because the Wright amendment "has created a set of expectations and a status quo that people have come to expect back at D/FW, we ought to take that into account."
Still, Southwest won at least one political victory in the past without even trying. It stayed on the sidelines, experts noted, when Congress loosened the Wright restrictions.
In 1997, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., led a fight to allow nonstop flights between Love Field and Kansas, Alabama and Mississippi. Originally, the Wright amendment restricted flights to Texas and its contiguous states – New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
"You have to remember that the circumstances were even more difficult when the Shelby amendment passed," said Ed Faberman, president of the Air Carriers Association, a trade group for discount airlines.
"While I understand positions and strength and money thrown around Washington, the fact is that we have a different aviation environment."
Out-of-state help
Mr. Faberman sees Southwest getting some help from lawmakers, especially those with smaller airports that could benefit from direct service to Dallas.
Tennessee's House delegation filed a bill in September that would include their state inside the Love Field perimeter.
Other out-of-state lawmakers who could help Southwest include Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Mr. Shelby. Both have opposed the Wright amendment.
Southwest also expects to tap business and leisure travelers in North Texas.
One idea under consideration, Mr. Kelly said, is a survey of area air travelers.
Friends of Love Field, an anti-Wright group led by former Dallas City Council member Jerry Bartos, said it found majority support for lifting the Wright amendment in a 1999 survey of Dallas County and Tarrant County residents.
Mr. Bartos, who is retired and not involved in the current fight, said travelers' concerns often are ignored in the political process because "consumers don't write enormous checks to congressional leaders."
But the area's biggest businesses, which pay for employee travel, often do.
Recent studies have shown they may have a reason to demand change.
Dallas' average business airfare of $593 is 48 percent higher than the $402 average in North America, according to American Express Co.'s eClipse Advisors.
The North Dallas Chamber of Commerce has appointed a 13-member committee led by Steve Joiner, an aviation consultant, to craft a stance on the Wright amendment.
"There's an increasing constituency for a repeal of the Wright amendment, and it's no longer just here in North Texas," said Steve Taylor, the chamber's president. "As a community, we need to have a thoughtful position on this."
What might a Wright repeal look like?
Experts say it could be introduced as a traditional stand-alone bill, like the Tennessee proposal. Or it may be tacked onto an unrelated measure as the Shelby amendment was.
Mr. Barton said that he doesn't expect a stand-alone bill to get very far and that he will be watching for more covert efforts. "We will just have to watch out to make sure it doesn't happen."
Staff writers Suzanne Marta in Dallas and Robert Dodge in Washington contributed to this report.
jimntx said:
I'm still curious where this comes from? AA has full access to DAL. They just cannot convert office space into gates as they tried to do to combat Legend. That wouldn't fly at ANY airport and is not an artifical limitation on AA. The WA, however, is an artificial limitation of true competition against AA.
So...your statements are absolutely false. DAL is open to all.
ngneer
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From the Dallas Love Field web site chronology page:
May 1, 2000
American Airlines begins long-haul service to Los Angeles International Airport (4 flights daily) and Chicago O'Hare (5 flights daily) using Fokker 100 jet aircraft reconfigured to 56 first-class seats. American Airlines joins Fort Worth and the D/FW Airport Board's appeal to the Supreme Court. A state appeals court reverses the earlier ruling by the state district court in Fort Worth, citing the federal appeals court decision.
September 12, 2001
American Airlines suspends service from Dallas Love Field indefinitely.
Dallas Love Field chronology page.
As the above shows, AA stopped operating flights at DAL after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, not because of anything to do with the Wright Amendment.
May 1, 2000
American Airlines begins long-haul service to Los Angeles International Airport (4 flights daily) and Chicago O'Hare (5 flights daily) using Fokker 100 jet aircraft reconfigured to 56 first-class seats. American Airlines joins Fort Worth and the D/FW Airport Board's appeal to the Supreme Court. A state appeals court reverses the earlier ruling by the state district court in Fort Worth, citing the federal appeals court decision.
September 12, 2001
American Airlines suspends service from Dallas Love Field indefinitely.
Dallas Love Field chronology page.
As the above shows, AA stopped operating flights at DAL after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, not because of anything to do with the Wright Amendment.
AEA annual meeting in PHL, Jan 7-9. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/anmt.htm
Roundtrip non stop airfare from AA.com $258 round trip departing jan6, returning jan 10th
Yea, something is broken here and needs fixed. 🙄
Virginia Postrell must have a real winner of a boss.
Roundtrip non stop airfare from AA.com $258 round trip departing jan6, returning jan 10th
Yea, something is broken here and needs fixed. 🙄
Virginia Postrell must have a real winner of a boss.
