Friday Afternoon Breaking News- Dallas

[FlyBoeingJets]

I hope AA and SWA both prosper.

I hope AA, CAL, NWA, USAir and DAL all prosper too. After the fleet shrinkage this year it will be another tough competitive landscape.

 

[ivauir]

....SWA decided to mock this achievement by staying at Love and in the process cornholed Ft. Worth.....If you knew the whole story on this you would have a cow, and you would have the same opinion I do.

Spare us your righteuos indigntion! You play fast and loose with the facts and then claim that ANYONE who disagrees with you must no know the facts. A remarkably skewed world view.

Trying to kick SWA out of LUV was just one of the many ways legacies have tried to squash SWA in the court room - because they were unable to do so in the marketplace.

And don't even try your "my airline goes to more destinations in Latin America so we should be able to charge more to go to Midland" argument. It dosn't hold water.

 

[TexaSWA]

You don't see anyway? Same way it happened the first time. I think your thesis has no merit. Just like looking at an aircraft logbook: This system has a history. The SWA corrective action: Remove/replace competition.

AA has never been forced to leave DAL in the time SWA has been in operation. How can you say this is our corrective action.

 

[Judge]

I luv Flopgut.

 

[cipolini]

The costs you cite are nothing compared to the costs of having a less than fully used DFW. Pull out the chart and examine the DFW airport diagram again. You will notice that it is a what you would call a "large" airport. It was built to absorb all Dallas AND Ft Worth airline traffic. It would work perfectly for the traffic setup you describe because that is what it was designed for. SWA decided to mock this achievement by staying at Love and in the process cornholed Ft. Worth. Ft. Worth would probably STILL pick up the tab on the expenses you tout as "insurmountable", especially since it is a solution to the problem! These costs that you would have kittens over, by the way, are nothing in the scheme of things. (ooooh, moving a simulator! Come on, your smarter than that). If you knew the whole story on this you would have a cow, and you would have the same opinion I do.

BTW, if your an angry taxpayer, refer to the article I posted earlier in this thread. Love Field is in the hole, bad. HQTS of the world's 3rd most profitable airline: broke. And for some reson, badly managed, had not raised landing fees in a long time either. Hmmm, how did that come about? THAT ought to tick you off Mr. taxpayer. THAT should help you realize SWA needs to go to DFW.

I believe they are broke because they "borrowed" the money that was sitting in some surplus account for other stuff in the city. I can't remember exactly what the story is, but basically the city used the money for something else.

BTW, will the city of Ft Wroth and DFW subsidise me for my big commute out to DFW... since I purposely bought a house 3 miles from where I work. Don't care too much to a 20 mile commute in each direction. Plus - suburbia - YUCK!!

 

[HalinTexas]

Flopgut, you're amazingly ignorant, obfuscate the facts or just a plain ole' liar.

I live in the Dallas area, grew up there, I've followed this stuff for the last 15+ years, and I have 1st hand knowledge of what I speak. Let's leave it at that.

It's pointless to argue with you, so I won't. Life's too short.

 

[Tejas-Jet]

Wright was inacted after the Airline Degregulation Act, as a reaction to SWA adding service to New Orleans from Houston Hobby. Jim Wright realized new INTERSTATE service from Love would be next, so he moved to stop it before it did.

Actually, Jim Wright wasn't the one who reealized it....it was the competitive fear among the carriers at DFW that came to Wright after numerous court challenges had been lost. Since the courts wouldn't see things their way, a federal law was the way to go.

Tejas

 

[The Prussian]

Posted on Wed, Jun. 14, 2006

Miller schedules news conference to announce agreement on Wright

By TREBOR BANSTETTER and DAVID WETHE
Star-Telegram Staff Writers

DALLAS — Dallas Mayor Laura Miller has scheduled a news conference for noon Thursday to announce a compromise on the Wright Amendment, as the cities and airlines put the finishing touches on the agreement Wednesday.
Sources close to the negotiations stressed that it has not yet been finalized. But several people close to all sides of the debate said it has reached the final stages of working out the details, and will likely be completed by late Wednesday or early Thursday.
The provisions of the agreement remain under wraps, but sources said Wednesday that they continue to include immediate through-ticketing from Dallas Love Field to destinations beyond the Wright Amendment zone; a 20-gate limit that would give Southwest Airlines 16 gates, American two and Continental Airlines two; and an eight-year moratorium on nonstop flights to distant cities.
The parties continue to negotiate provisions including restrictions on future passenger service at Alliance and Meacham airports in Fort Worth. One proposal being discussed would require Southwest to give up gates at Love if it wanted to add service at either of those airports, according to several sources close to the deal.
Dallas council members had been scheduled to vote on a proposed agreement Wednesday on Wright, but that vote had to be postponed when a deal was not completed.
Miller and Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief agreed to a compromise late Tuesday, according to several sources who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks. Details remained fluid.
The ban on long-haul flights, which had been nine years, was shortened to eight at Southwest’s request, according to one source close to the talks.
All the parties negotiated until about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, one source said, and continued to work through the day.
Sources indicated that the Thursday news conference will likely include executives from both airlines as well as the two mayors. American CEOs Gerard Arpey and Gary Kelly were in New York Wednesday meeting with Wall Street analysts but both planned to return Wednesday night.
The Wright Amendment, a 1979 federal law, restricts flights from Love to Texas and a handful of nearby states. Southwest, which has headquarters in Dallas and operates at Love, has been lobbying since 2004 to have the law repealed. American, which is based in Fort Worth and operates a major hub at D/FW, has been fighting to keep the law intact.
Airline executives hunkered down Tuesday to analyze details of a proposed compromise which they learned in meeting with the mayors Monday. The details included the surprising revelation that the proposal would leave much of the law intact until 2015.
That news had American warming to some tenets of the proposal while Southwest found little to support.
The deal would allow immediate through-ticketing out of Love Field, by which travelers could buy tickets to faraway destinations that connect through a Wright state. But it also called for a nine-year moratorium on new flights from Love to distant cities.
The waiting period had previously been characterized by sources close to the deal as a "phase-in." Thus, many parties following the talks believed that long-haul flights to new cities and states would increase throughout the period.
Southwest executives were "stunned" to learn the waiting period did not include a gradual phaseout of the restrictions, sources with the airline said Tuesday.
"This isn’t a phaseout; it’s a cliff," one source, who asked not to be identified, said Tuesday. "We absolutely can’t go to our employees, our customers, our supporters and say that’s a good idea."
As details emerged, some supporters of repeal criticized the proposed compromise as too restrictive.
"It’s not a compromise at all; it’s just a big delay tactic," said Tony Page of Friends of Love Field, an anti-Wright group.
Some in Fort Worth criticized the negotiations, which have been held behind closed doors, because they did not include public debate.
"The Fort Worth way is to have citizen input," City Councilman Donavan Wheatfall said during a Tuesday meeting.
Friends of Love Field, a neighborhood group that is pushing for immediate repeal of the Wright Amendment, also expressed concern about the closed-door meetings on the Wright Amendment.
The Love Field master plan was drafted in 2001 with the help of more than 50 people, including local residents and council members, said William Foster, a member of Friends of Love Field.
"Now, we feel it’s incredibly arrogant that two people from Dallas and Fort Worth are coming together" and trying to undo the work done in 2001 by more than 50 people to end decades of disagreement about the airport, Foster told Dallas council memebers Wednesday. What's more, he said, they think their judgment is superior to the citizens' committee's and "they’re going forward without our input."
He also raised objections to the city’s expressed interest in shutting down the former Legend Airlines terminal to commercial airline traffic.
"It is a money-making airport," he said of Love Field. "We’re killing the golden calf. If you have a golden calf, you don’t take one leg at a time and eat it until the calf is gone."
Back in Fort Worth, Moncrief disclosed in Tuesday's pre-City Council meeting why the city was looking at hiring the Los Angeles law firm O’Melveny & Myers.
The firm, experienced in aviation matters, would give Fort Worth much-needed expertise on federal aviation rules and regulations.
"We’re kind of at the ground level," Moncrief said.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said she would fight to get the mayors’ package through Congress. Hutchison sparked the negotiations earlier this year.
"If it’s a balanced plan, I would certainly go forward to try to keep it from having any incursions, and if there were changes, I would consult with both cities," she said.
Stop-and-Think, the neighborhood group that supports keeping the Wright Amendment, said it hopes more of the talks can be brought into public light.
"We would just like to have some kind of validation to what we’re hearing" in media reports, said Jay Pritchard, executive director of the non-profit group that received at least $1 million from American Airlines. "The numbers are changing, it seems like on an hourly basis. ... We would just like to know what’s being negotiated and what’s on the table."
Pritchard said although two weeks doesn’t seem like a lot of time to talk about the points of a deal, he’s pleased to see that Miller "has not really pushed this deadline" her council set that expires Wednesday.

Washington bureau reporter Maria Recio contributed to this report.


Trebor Banstetter, (817) 390-7064</B>
[email protected]
David Wethe, 817-685-3808
[email protected]

 

[The Prussian]

The next question is...will interested members in the US Congress buy off on an 8-9 year timetable. Could get interesting in the the next week or so...

 

[GuppyWN]

I hope Gary Kelly tells them to pound sand. We'll make progress on our own thank you very much. It's already starting to crumble. No need to wait 9 years to fly where we should be able to fly right now!

Gup