Does anyone else think this is funny?
Study says repealing Dallas airport limits would cut fares
FORT WORTH (AP) — Eliminating restrictions on long-haul flights from Dallas Love Field would cause fares between North Texas and dozens of U.S. cities to fall up to 50%, according to a recent study by an aviation consultant.
Consultants Simat, Helliesen & Eichner of Cambridge, Mass., predicted that if the restrictions were lifted, Southwest Airlines would begin service quickly from Dallas to more than 40 cities including Chicago, St. Louis and San Jose, Calif.
Average fares to those cities would fall as other airlines matched Southwest's lower fares, the consultants said.
The consultant's study was commissioned by Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, which favors a law that limits most commercial flights from Love Field to Texas and seven nearby states.
DFW Airport officials released a summary of the study two weeks ago, saying it bolstered their argument that repealing the law would hurt DFW by shifting hundreds of flights to Love Field, which is closer to downtown Dallas.
DFW Airport officials did not release the consultant's findings on fares until the Fort Worth Star-Telegram requested them from DFW's legal department, the newspaper reported in Friday's editions.
DFW Chief Operating Officer Kevin Cox denied trying to hide the fare findings.
"We just didn't think anyone was interested in 160 pages of voluminous material," he said.
"That's ludicrous," Southwest spokeswoman Beth Harbin said Friday. "Why wouldn't people be interested in information that could save them 50%? DFW only shared half the information."
On Thursday, two North Texas congressmen introduced legislation to repeal the Love Field limits, known as the Wright Amendment, saying the law hurt consumers by keeping air fares in the region artificially high.
But U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican from suburban Fort Worth and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, immediately said he would do whatever it took to keep the law on the books.
The Wright Amendment passed in 1979 and was designed to build up then-new DFW Airport by protecting it from competition by Love Field. Southwest remained neutral on the subject for years but began lobbying openly for the law's repeal late last year, calling it anti-consumer.
Southwest is the dominant carrier at Love Field and would be helped most by repeal of the Wright Amendment. American Airlines, a unit of Fort Worth-based AMR, dominates at DFW Airport and has lobbied to keep the restrictions at Love Field.