Boz,
I think you're confusing two separate events from two separate times. Allowing SWA to operate out of Love Field when Love was supposed to be closed to commercial air traffic would be the events surrounding the STARTUP of Southwest, early '70's. They weren't part of the agreement of all operating airlines to leave Love and move to the new DFW, so they weren't required to leave Love Field. Thus they were allowed to stay at Love & fly the triangle of HOU and SAT. THAT decision (court ruling) WAS "a major factor in SWA's initial survivial."
However, the Wright Amendment happened several years later. Southwest was beyond the original 3 cities and their "initial survival," and the only threat of closing Love to commercial air traffic in 1979 was in Jim Wright's original bill that he couldn't get passed. So everybody sat down to hammer out a compromise that all could live with. The WA was the result, and there's a world of difference between "I won't oppose that bill" (which Southwest didn't, at the time and for years afterward) and "I agree to never seek to have this reconsidered." For instance, "I agree to rent this apartment" is completely different from agreeing to pay rent & live there for the rest of your life. AA agreeing to serve Love Field (during the time they competed with Legend -- see Chase's post earlier) sure wasn't the same thing as agreeing to continue to serve Love Field once Legend was gone. Laws are changed all the time, with what used to be the law being amended or nullified as circumstances change.
Wright was a polititian in all the bad senses of the word, and he surely knows better than to think that a grudging acceptance of a compromise that can be lived with today is the same thing as a solemn pledge never to readdress the issue decades later under vastly changed circumstances.
Wright's other main point is about some supposed air safety issue about having two airports with "overlapping" arrival & departure patterns. Utter, total, complete nonsense, and everybody who has flown into DAL knows it. There used to be RJ's and AA's F-100's flying into DAL (also Legend's jets, briefly), along with more SWA flights (they've cut back recently), and Delta along with AA into DFW, and the airspace system handled it perfectly safely (delays at DFW, yes; unsafe, no). Now Delta has mostly left DFW, most of the RJ's have left DAL, and there is ample space for more traffic -- more so at DAL than at DFW!
AA is smart enough not to use the "airspace" argument, but Jim Wright thinks he can dissemble & sound convincing with it, so away he goes. (Maybe he should visit SOCAL approach & see how they have arrivals & departures for LAX, ONT, BUR, SNA, and LGB all operating safely in the same area!)
The WA isn't "an agreement," it's a Federal Law. SWA doesn't "agree" to abide by the law, and there is no place they ever agreed to give up their right to petition Congress to pass or change a law.
I'm sorry, but there are just limits to this whole "a deal's a deal" line of reasoning... if there was a solemn pledge that "we will never, ever, no matter what fly out of Love beyond these limits," then that's one thing. But no such statement was ever made by Southwest Airlines. Besides, the Shelby Amendment changed the boundaries of the WA area once already!
If SWA was trying to change the WA one or two years after it was passed, there might be a valid point to arguing that "you were okay with this compromise a year ago; what changed?" But two and a half decades later, it's pretty obvious what's changed, and the WA has outlived its usefulness. Times change, circumstances change, and laws can be changed too. This one certainly needs to be changed!
Twenty five years is more than long enough to protect the "fledgling" new DFW airport!
I think you're confusing two separate events from two separate times. Allowing SWA to operate out of Love Field when Love was supposed to be closed to commercial air traffic would be the events surrounding the STARTUP of Southwest, early '70's. They weren't part of the agreement of all operating airlines to leave Love and move to the new DFW, so they weren't required to leave Love Field. Thus they were allowed to stay at Love & fly the triangle of HOU and SAT. THAT decision (court ruling) WAS "a major factor in SWA's initial survivial."
However, the Wright Amendment happened several years later. Southwest was beyond the original 3 cities and their "initial survival," and the only threat of closing Love to commercial air traffic in 1979 was in Jim Wright's original bill that he couldn't get passed. So everybody sat down to hammer out a compromise that all could live with. The WA was the result, and there's a world of difference between "I won't oppose that bill" (which Southwest didn't, at the time and for years afterward) and "I agree to never seek to have this reconsidered." For instance, "I agree to rent this apartment" is completely different from agreeing to pay rent & live there for the rest of your life. AA agreeing to serve Love Field (during the time they competed with Legend -- see Chase's post earlier) sure wasn't the same thing as agreeing to continue to serve Love Field once Legend was gone. Laws are changed all the time, with what used to be the law being amended or nullified as circumstances change.
Wright was a polititian in all the bad senses of the word, and he surely knows better than to think that a grudging acceptance of a compromise that can be lived with today is the same thing as a solemn pledge never to readdress the issue decades later under vastly changed circumstances.
Wright's other main point is about some supposed air safety issue about having two airports with "overlapping" arrival & departure patterns. Utter, total, complete nonsense, and everybody who has flown into DAL knows it. There used to be RJ's and AA's F-100's flying into DAL (also Legend's jets, briefly), along with more SWA flights (they've cut back recently), and Delta along with AA into DFW, and the airspace system handled it perfectly safely (delays at DFW, yes; unsafe, no). Now Delta has mostly left DFW, most of the RJ's have left DAL, and there is ample space for more traffic -- more so at DAL than at DFW!
AA is smart enough not to use the "airspace" argument, but Jim Wright thinks he can dissemble & sound convincing with it, so away he goes. (Maybe he should visit SOCAL approach & see how they have arrivals & departures for LAX, ONT, BUR, SNA, and LGB all operating safely in the same area!)
The WA isn't "an agreement," it's a Federal Law. SWA doesn't "agree" to abide by the law, and there is no place they ever agreed to give up their right to petition Congress to pass or change a law.
I'm sorry, but there are just limits to this whole "a deal's a deal" line of reasoning... if there was a solemn pledge that "we will never, ever, no matter what fly out of Love beyond these limits," then that's one thing. But no such statement was ever made by Southwest Airlines. Besides, the Shelby Amendment changed the boundaries of the WA area once already!
If SWA was trying to change the WA one or two years after it was passed, there might be a valid point to arguing that "you were okay with this compromise a year ago; what changed?" But two and a half decades later, it's pretty obvious what's changed, and the WA has outlived its usefulness. Times change, circumstances change, and laws can be changed too. This one certainly needs to be changed!
Twenty five years is more than long enough to protect the "fledgling" new DFW airport!
