I think every airline should have been able to fly from DAL to whereever they wanted to since 1971 Bubba. Riiigggghhttt?! How can you tell me its right to ignore the prevailing agreement in Houston for a single FIS airport, but perfectly ok to force Braniff and other legacies off DAL back in the day? Or for that matter Delta today? Do you see how your argument isn't tracking? Do you see your inconsistencies?
Anyway, what do you think of my Parker family thesis?
Hey, I agree that everyone should have been able to fly out of DAL since 1971. I'm with you there. I still think it should be the case.
But the legacies agreed to move (to DFW) in return for having a many-times larger airport built to support their operations. In other words, they
wanted to move, because DAL wasn't big enough for their expansion plans. DAL
still isn't big enough (runway lengths) for the legacies' heavy, intercontinental aircraft.
And to the second part of your rant, we didn't force
anyone out of DAL, either "back in the day," or now. Over the years, other airlines came and went at DAL, and all of their own free will. There was plenty of gates in those days, but they usually left because they couldn't make their business model work, and not because anyone forced them out. As far as now goes, if you wanted to operate out of DAL, then maybe you should have fought against the gate restrictions American Airlines insisted on in our battle to lift the WA. (Just like you
should have fought against the WA in 1979 as well.) Trust me, limiting DAL gates to 20 (our 16 and the other 4), wasn't Southwest's idea. Nor was it our idea to give American's gates to Virgin instead of you--we
all made our pitch for them, and the DOJ picked Virgin over you and us.
Hey, I got an idea....maybe you could spend
your money/efforts to lobby/fight to change the DAL restrictions again--this time to add more gates for everyone!
As far as your Parker family thesis goes, I honestly don't know anything about it. Could you provide a little more info?
Bubba