AA cant take the heat

[Ex737Driver]

What you don't realize is...

UAL will fly to Love not DFW
.
DAL will fly to Love not DFW

NWA will fly to Love not DFW

CAL will fly to Love not DFW

AWA/USA will fly to Love not DFW

AAI will fly to Love not DFW

F9 will fly to Love not DFW

Southwest should be cafeful or they may just get what they wish for

CAL already flies to DAL with 10 flights and day and DFW with 20 flights day. Point is, SWA knew what they were in for when they decided to operate out of DAL.

 

[shroomwell]

AA made the market in DFW, SW made the market at DAL. I say it is time for both sides to play their respective hands without the other crying about it. Giving gates back is akin to giving little johnny another chance on his exam because he couldn't cut it the first time around.

Actually you have it wrong. They both have played their hands, and now SWA (aka little johnny) doesn't like it and wants to change the rules in the middle of the game. If you want to change the rules you have to start the game over.

 

[HalinTexas]

SWA operates out of 14 gates at KDAL. The Legend terminal has been deconstructed/renovated I believe. AAL still is listed as having 1 gate, and CAL has 2, but they share with AAL. If anyone else wants to come in they're going to have to spend some bucks to renovate gate space. I doubt the city will pony up very much money, if any, for someone to move out of KDFW to move to KDAL.

I imagine any lifting of restrictions would be incremental over time. SWA has said they would be amenable to such restrictions.

AMR is going to have to come up with another game plan besides high fares on RJ's. If they weren't worried about the competition at KDAL, they wouldn't be putting up such a fuss. They'll still have a commanding presence in those areas where driving to KDAL would be too much of a hassle. The DFW area is growing northward and westward. Collin county, where I live, is equally served by both KDAL and KDFW. Tarrant, Denton, and Wise counties are probably better served by KDFW. KDFW will always be the airport for Int'l travel. Lifting this restriction might allow Ft. Worth to get more federal moneys to upgrade KFTW for airline travel.

 

[mdf]

Actually you have it wrong. They both have played their hands, and now SWA (aka little johnny) doesn't like it and wants to change the rules in the middle of the game. If you want to change the rules you have to start the game over.

Actually the game is still being played, which is the reason this thread was started in the first place. The WA is not a rule, it is the govt placing arbitrary restrictions on business. It is time to let everyone compete without trying to tie one players hand behind their back. Even if the player is Shaq.

 

[scoreboard]

I'm sorry Fltby

Scoreboard,
You seem a little sensitive to my analogy about wal-mart and SWA. Enigma brought up wal-mart and I made a post that 'ran' with this comparison. I thought I was being complimentary speaking of how they (SWA) are remarkable. I meant that in a flattering way. Let me say it again, in a different way. I admire the fact they can be profitable while offering low fares. Does that clear things up a tad?

Allow me to elaborate my original point to clarify. The public has decided that low fares are more important than anything else... for the most part. So, we give them those fares. SWA does it profitably and if other carriers wish to match, and try to retain their market share, they will have to operate in the red. Would I expect SWA to raise their fare structure to allow more of the other carriers to be profitable? Heck no. They have been operating as a tremendous success on that model, why change? SWA has a low cost model, other carriers match that model and now they're taking pillows off airplanes. What next? Bring your own seat? Maybe the other carriers should have tried to compete on something other than fare... but, once again, that's what the public values most.

Fastforward a few years, competitors are getting leaner and meaner and there are more profits (albeit modest) to go around. What have we accomplished? The price of fuel is up, costs are rising slowly and I fear that Big profits from an airline, any airline, is a thing of the past. Would that make airline stock a good investment? How about the salaries and wages at these airlines? Compensation across the board has declined. There are certainly other factors (affecting compensation) but low fares in a high cost environment is one of them.

When I started this career it was my dream to work for SWA. I am customer-driven, I actually care about people. Unfortunately for me, I'll probably never get a chance. I envy those that have.

good luck!

110 in PHX working in the yard, note to self, take lap in pool before reading into posts...

 

[FlyFastLiveSlow]

AA is certainly going to have to do better than they do in ATL. Last week, within 1 hour of 2 departures, not a single agent was anywhere near any one of their four gates, although hundreds of people were waiting for someone, anyone to help them. The only agent anywhere around was the one who had closed the door 20 prior to departure, and told a revenue passenger "no you can't get on, I've already done the paperwork." The airplane pushed with 20 open seats. No wonder they can't compete with this kind of customer service.

 

[labbats]

The WA was an agreement by all parties at the time of construction of DFW. Southwest came along very shortly thereafter and thus got by with operating out of DAL. Had Dallas the foresight to shut down DAL or Southwest come along a year earlier this debate wouldn't be going on.

 

[ivauir]

Had Dallas the foresight to shut down DAL or Southwest come along a year earlier this debate wouldn't be going on.

And if I were taller and better looking I'd be an actor and not a pilot. "Might have beens" and "ifs" don't matter. The WA has become a crutch for American, they've made DFW unappealing to anyone else, they stiffle any competition, and they keep their ticket prices high. The only loser if the WA is repealed is AA - why does one Texas airline derserve better treatment than another? Why should the consumer (the customer - remember them?) suffer for AA's benefit?

 

[labbats]

Sorry to be such a devil's advocate...

http://www.keepdfwstrong.com/pdf/results.pdf

Scroll to the last two pages for the nitty-gritty.

 

[apdsm]

CAL already flies to DAL with 10 flights and day and DFW with 20 flights day. Point is, SWA knew what they were in for when they decided to operate out of DAL.

Check your history. SWA started operations in 1971 out of DAL. The WA was passed in 1979, interestingly, the same year SWA started service to one city (New Orleans) outside of Texas.

 

[apdsm]

Some of you need to read this...

History of the Wright Amendment

Southwest Airlines has been dedicated to providing low fares and dependable air travel to America for 38 years. In 1967, Southwest Airlines chose to liberate the City of Dallas from the exorbitant airfares that existed even then. Of all the cities and airports in the country, Dallas was picked to host the concept of a low-fare airline for all travelers. But no good deed goes unpunished, as they say, and for its efforts 38 years ago to bring affordable air travel to the Metroplex, Southwest Airlines suffered 12 years of nonstop litigation from DFW International Airport and its airline tenants. The first four years were spent just trying to begin service. Only after a final decision by the Texas Supreme Court, affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, was Southwest able to begin service on June 18, 1971. By then, the litigation had cost Southwest millions of dollars, depleting virtually all of Southwest's financial capital-but not its will.

After losing the initial legal battle, competing airlines joined forces with DFW Airport and the Cities of Dallas and Fort Worth in a series of new legal bouts before administrative agencies and state and federal courts. The purpose of that litigation was to defeat Southwest by evicting it from Love Field in Dallas, the source of Southwest's competitive niche. That litigation continued, in numerous forms and before numerous forums, again including the U.S. Supreme Court. The last battle in this series was not settled until September of 1979, with one last regulatory ruling from a federal agency decreeing that Southwest could operate from Love Field, both for intrastate and interstate flights.

During this 12 year period, the city Southwest wanted to liberate from high airfares made it a crime for a commercial air carrier to land at Love Field (a law that was later overturned by a federal judge as an abuse of law). Along the way, two of Southwest's competitors were indicted by a federal criminal grand jury for their role in the conspiracy to bankrupt the fledgling carrier. It would have been much easier for Southwest to pack up and move its low fare airline to another city but Southwest believed in Dallas and knew the citizens of North Texas deserved the Freedom to Fly. They, too, wanted Love Field to be the cornerstone of a budding competitive niche that is not dependent upon monopoly, but founded on close-in, non-hub airports that allow for quick aircraft turns and high productivity for both airplanes and employees.

In 1978, Southwest saw a ray of hope; the U.S. Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act, establishing a national policy that would take the government out of the business of regulating which routes an airline could fly. Congress acknowledged that open competition is the best means of determining air routes and fares, but memories are short, and Love Field would soon be excluded from this freedom with the passage of the Wright Amendment less than a year later.

Unsuccessful in beating Southwest into submission via the courts, DFW supporters made this local issue a congressional issue. House Majority Leader Jim Wright, without notice, without hearings, and without opportunity for public comment or informed debate, attached an amendment that banned any airline from engaging in interstate air commerce from Love Field to an unrelated bill. The U.S. Senate refused to go along, and forced a compromise, today's Wright Amendment, whose admitted purpose is to protect DFW Airport (and the airlines which serve it) from competition.

 

[:-)]

The WA was an agreement by all parties at the time of construction of DFW. Southwest came along very shortly thereafter and thus got by with operating out of DAL. Had Dallas the foresight to shut down DAL or Southwest come along a year earlier this debate wouldn't be going on.

Dude, surf on down to message #41. Your assertion is just plain WRONG. What else are you wrong about?

Calvin

 

[ivauir]

Scroll to the last two pages for the nitty-gritty.

Um what nitty gritty? The last two pages are just unfounded conclusions. This looks like the same BS that AA has been spewing for years, I don't buy it. I see no data to support thier conclusions and the ones that seem supportable still don't matter: any drop that DFW sees in traffic due to repeal of the WA was artificially supported by the WA.

Lets get nitty gritty ourselves: AA charges $499 to go from Tucson to DFW. They have no competition on this route, and they are gouging. If a passenger wanted to go from Tucson to DAL on SWA they could book two separate segments and they'd have to check bags twice. The fare to ABQ is $105 and the ABQ to DAL fare is 150 for a total of $255 (both are walk up, one way - highest fare). In order protect AA that passenger has to either pay twice as much or recheck bags in ABQ (if they even know enough to book this way). This is utterly ridiculus protection of one company above the needs of the consumer. And it doesn't just hurt Dallas, it hurts places like Tucson, where in order to go east you can get gouged by AA to DAL, Delta to ATL, or get good fares from SWA to MDW or PHL. Most folks just drive to PHX and go SWA or AWA, and the Tucson airport and economy suffer.

AA/DFW can commision all of the studies it wants, but it controls this market and has given itself a virtual monopoly. It then uses this monopoly power to abuse the consumer.

 

[Falcon Jet 1]

Go to Samjohnson.house.gov and take the poll abouth the repeal of the wrong amendment.

 

[80drvr]

1. In the early 1960s, as a result of its finding that Dallas’ and Fort Worth’s operation of competing airports was harmful to the public interest, the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) ordered the cities to build a jointly owned airport to serve the area’s needs.

2. The cities responded by creating the DFW Board in 1968 and adopting a Bond Ordinance to finance the construction of DFW. As an essential part of the Bond Ordinance, the cities agreed to phase out passenger air service at their existing airports. The interstate carriers using the Dallas and Fort Worth airports agreed to move their operations to DFW (which opened in 1973).

3. Despite the clear intention of the Cities and the cooperation of all other air carriers, Southwest Airlines (which began operating solely intrastate service from DAL in 1971) steadfastly refused to move its operations to DFW, leading to a series of long and expensive law suits in the 1970s. Southwest, by arguing that the CAB determinations and Bond Ordinance provisions did not apply because it only served intrastate markets, successfully thwarted the efforts of Dallas, Fort Worth, and DFW to fulfill the Bond Ordinance objective of consolidating passenger service at DFW. As a result of this litigation, Southwest continued to offer intrastate service from Love Field.

4. Shortly after Congress deregulated the airline industry in 1978, Southwest applied for permission to provide interstate service between Love Field and New Orleans, in clear contravention of the intention of the Cities (as set out in the Bond Ordinance).This action threatened yet another round of litigation and controversy regarding Love Field.

5. In order to put an end to the dispute and resolve all legal challenges, Texas Congressman Jim Wright negotiated a settlement among the interested parties. To make it binding, the agreement was codified into the so-called Wright Amendment (section 29 of the International Aviation Transportation Act of 1979).The law allowed Love Field to stay open instead of being closed down to commercial aviation as originally intended.

6. With the agreement of Southwest Airlines, the City of Dallas, the City of Fort Worth, the DFW Airport Board, and other interested parties, the Wright Amendment allowed the airport to remain open only so long as service would be limited to points in Texas and the four contiguous states.Without this amendment, the city of Dallas would have continued the process of closing Love Field. Since 1979, the only change to the law was the 1998 “Shelby Amendment” to allow service to an additional three close-by states and unrestricted flights on aircraft with less than 56 seats.