Southwest Airlines has filed notice of intent to appeal Judge Kinkeade’s ruling that Delta could continue to use gates at Love Field Airport.  Southwest says that Delta is tresspassing and Delta says Southwest has a monopoly and the City of Dallas was last seen taking the last train to Clarksville.

Love Field is a public airport.  I don’t expect it to be infinitely adjustable to all demands to use the facility.

I do, however, expect it to be more flexible to airlines than simply accomodating Southwest and Virgin America.  That’s a No Bueno moment.

We got here because Southwest got greedy, the City of Dallas refuses to push for more gates and American Airlines wants Southwest boxed in. This anti-competitive and a restraint to trade to many airlines.

So let’s turn Love Field into a private airport, sell it to Southwest for a reasonably low sum and let Southwest do what it wants.

Or even better, sell the airport to the highest  bidder and let them fight it out.  If Southwest doesn’t want the faclilty and has “Dallas fatigue”, then they can move over to the new facilities at DFW or even just walk away.

There is another alternative though. . . create more gates, have an annual auction for all gates and highest bidder gets unrestrained use for 1 year.

Things to think about in the airline industry.

Filed under: Airports by ajax