Love Field/Wright Amendment

by **me@smu** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 11:12 am

I personally love the flights out of Texas for my hops out to west texas or Houston, but being a homeowner in the neighborhoods surrounding love...The Wright amendment is a brilliant thing and should remain in place. Oh and those stupid Southwest ads shown every two minutes in the NBA finals only solidifies my opinion.

by **friarwolf** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 1:01 pm

Not a fan of either as I was a Delta guy back in my serious traveling days. However, I do have a big problem with AA padding their fare margins for travel originating out of DFW..................

by **RGV Pony** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 2:05 pm

SW needs to go compete at DFW. AA could and should have a few out of Love.

Look at Hobby & IAH.
Midway & O'Hare
Manchester & Logan.

I'll admit it's at least a little fun to watch two companies fight it out on an issue revolving around essentially who gets to keep their monopoly and who doesn't.

by **Bergermeister** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 2:51 pm

This will all be decided by lawmakers from states other than Tejas. Consequently, the Wright Amendment is history... probably sooner than later. Love Field homeowners don't know how good they have it. I lived there before the jet age. Talk about noise. But... you learn to live with it or move. We eventually moved. Love Field ain't going nowhere.

by **SMU Football Blog** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 5:40 pm

Strangely, I have lived near airports for years in Dallas. Used to live near Love, now live near Addison. I rarely notice it. I notice it most when a gulfstream or something does a short takeoff at Addison.

But, hey, I used to live in Fort Worth and remember the heyday of Carswell as a SAC base and the B-52's flying overhead. They were so loud, you couldn't even think.

by **Paladin** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:12 pm

Has nothing to do with the merits of the Wright Amendment debate, but you can largely thank Southwest Airlines political clout for putting the kabosh on the bullet trains that were being planned a few years ago and were to connect Dallas with San Antonio, Austin, and Houston. ....

How nice would that have been !

by PK » Wed Jun 14, 2006 11:11 pm

I'm all for abolishing the Wright Amendment. It had it's purpose when DFW was a fledging airport, but now that AA has made DFW it's own airport...the hell with them. Soutwest Airlines is successful for a number of reasons other then it's monopoly at Love. It understands that their planes only make money when in the air which is why they chose, when possible, to use the less busy airports to limit the time their planes have to sit on the ground , taxi and wait to takeoff. They also understand customer service.

AA, on the other hand, does not understand customer service. Last year we were going on an AA flight to Omaha. About 40 minutes before the flight was to leave, AA changed the departure gate.....to another terminal. We were already at the original departure gate and then had to take the tram and go thru security again. What a crock. Another time I had to go to Austin for an 8:00 am meeting which meant leaving Dallas before SW would be allowed to start takeoffs from Love. By the time I drove to DFW made the AA flight and got a taxi to the meeting place, I could have driven there in the same time frame. The worst part was upon returning to DFW, we arrived at a gate in a diffirent terminal across the spine road from where I had parked. Add an additonal 30 minutes for hiking.

I will always fly SW given the option.

by **Bergermeister** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:08 am

My sentiments exactly, PK.

by **jtstang** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:51 am

Not sure why SWA bought off on the cities' deal--I think Congress would've given them immediate through-ticketing and then some.

by PK » Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:28 am

jtstang wrote:Not sure why SWA bought off on the cities' deal--I think Congress would've given them immediate through-ticketing and then some.

Perhaps because the cities' deal limits competing airlines to a total of only 4 gates while they retain 16 gates. Just a guess.

by **jtstang** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:31 am

Maybe, but that's pretty close to the ratio they have now.

by PK » Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:41 am

jtstang wrote:Maybe, but that's pretty close to the ratio they have now.

Exactly, but completely doing away with the Wright Amendment by Congress could possibly open up the flood gates to much more competiton at Love including perhaps limiting the City's ability to control the number of gates...it would be an FAA control issue then. Again just a guess.

Love Field/Wright Amendment

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