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How Southwest Took Over Dallas Love-Field Airport

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Despite the city of Dallas imposing numerous strict provisions on air travel at the city's Love-Field Airport, Southwest Airlines prevailed and was able to repeal those amendments. Today, Southwest is the airport's largest operator. (aeroxplorer.com) More...

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jimquinndallas
Jim Quinn 14
Jim Wright had to have been one crooked guy... AA was crooked in my book as well. Blatant.
patpylot
patrick baker 13
this shows the need for competent journalists to report, explain and continue to follow stories like this silliness from Rep Wright and his transparent efforts to stifle Southwest Airlines and promote American Airlines. Love field is not set up for the large passenger flows from international traffic, for the gates and baggage systems are less capable than DFW. Love field is perfectly set up to be serviced by southwest, and the expanded connections compliment DFW and American's service.
jeffinsydney
jeff slack 4
TOO RIGHT PATRICK!
Spot on with your overview.
btweston
btweston -9
Just so you know, you come off like a crazy person.
kupuna11
Thomas Craig 10
Be nice, this isn't the Drudge report...
jeffinsydney
jeff slack 3
you may want to consider increasing the dose of your meds
krvabob
bob proud 6
The previous posters have it somewhat backwards. The Wright Amendment was a compromise that allowed Southwest to keep flying from Love Field. The City of Dallas and virtually everybody not wearing orange hotpants wanted Southwest to operate only from DFW and to close Love to commercial traffic. And at the time of the initial agreement, AA was only a secondary player in Dallas....Braniff was the dominant carrier at DFW

watkinssusan
bob..you are correct..i am old enough to remember when there WAS NO DFW , and braniff flew in and out of love field ..after dfw was built,southwest was still "the little airline that could", flying out of love field..lots of people actually still prefer love for its location,and southwest with approval has expanded,remodeled,built and now has a great presence at love field..in fact,united used to have their united express jets fly in and out of there from iah,but im not sure they still do, and southwest came and went from hobby in houston, expanded to iah,went back to all operations from hobby,them this last year came back to operating out of hou and iah..i dont think they use dfw however,but they have been more than just a "regional" or texas carrier for quite some time,and braniff, for as great a company as it was, has been gone since the early 80's!(pss..i remember staying at the dfw hyatt which was between two terminals at the time and looking out my window to see rows and rows of parked braniff planes after their "demise"..it was sad...)aa then became the "dominant"one at DFW and began their expansion..
Kensterfly
Ken Thompson 2
Bob Proud, you are incorrect. The Wright Amendment had nothing to do with allowing SWA to stay at at DAL. That right was well established long before then. The Wright amendment was actually a compromise that allowed SWA to fly interstate out of DAL but restricted it (originally) to states bordering Texas.
I was there from the early days. Employee #1416. Good times!
jeffinsydney
jeff slack -1
Braniff has been gone for decades and AA has taken up the place where they left off.
bentwing60
bentwing60 3
Well, Okay, captain obvious, MSW is quite correct in that BA was the major player in the DFW market before harding lawrence put it to bed. And bob proud is spot on. I once rode dirt bikes where the monster now resides! Pre-DFW, the Northwest Hwy, Harry Hines area was the scene where pilots, FA's, hell, anyone successful under 50 lived in apartments, night clubbbed it somewhere 24/7 and trolled the supermarkets for 'dates'. You wouldn't have believed what some of these gals shopped in, MINIs, pumps and an empty basket! SWA bloomed in and was part of that era. I miss it! and so did you.

Kudos to Herb and Colleen!
TexasKid747
JW Wilson 3
AA made many attornies uber-wealthy suing Southwest. Oh well, Southwest has lost a bit of its' luster too. Wish I could afford a company plane, lol.
GeorgePepe
George Pepe 1
I love that airport. Let’s hope and pray that southwest never gives in to the city and moves to dfw. Long live KDAL.
phowry
Phil Howry -1
Bottom line, America's free-market business system is inherently customer service oriented; thus, superior to a centralized government controlled system. A free market economy inherently dictates business success or failure, don't legislate it to accommodate private equity investment tax avoidance.
ltullos
Larry Tullos 3
Another boomer myth. Yeah, it's supposed to be that way, but guys like Bob "Don't Feed The Dog" Crandall helped kill that and now we have AANUS. BTW, I'm 70 and able to recognize what is and what was. There are very few free markets now, and especially in the aircraft and airline industries where mergers killed of real competition.
skylab72
skylab72 1
America has yet to establish a free-market business system.

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