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.

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Love Field has been screwed up since Fort Worth Congressman Jim Wright decided to muck with issues involving Dallas Love Field and Dallas / Fort Worth airports.

And no one has had enough political courage to recognize a vastly different reality as compared to 35 years ago.

There is this myth that there is space at DFW airport.  There isn’t.  DFW airport can longer accommodate a major airline entering the marketplace at this time.  DFW airport admits it needs at least one more terminal and is beginning the very long, very arduous process of approving, designing and building a new terminal.

So, yeah, we should have that ready by 2030.

Love Field airport was capacity constrained the day the 5 Party Agreement to end the Wright Amendment was signed.  All of the parties knew it and all knew that they were kicking a can down the road.

And it took less than a year after the restrictions lifted for a major legal battle over access to the airport was begun.  A sure sign the deal was bad from the beginning.

A pox on the City for treating Love Field as a second cousin in the airport game.  Love Field isn’t a luxury and it has provided exceptional competition in the marketplace to lower fares.  Particularly after October 13, 2014.  All of the Dallas / Fort Worth area benefits because while Southwest, Virgin and Delta are driving prices down at Love Field, they’re also driving them down at DFW.  I know this because suddenly it is exceptionally cheaper for me to fly to places such as Portland, OR and Norfolk/Richmond, VA.  More than a hundred dollars less than it used to be.

This is the only market to see lower fares rather than higher fares in the last year.

A pox on Southwest Airlines for knowing that they were kicking that can down the road and then beating everyone up for not getting what they wanted.  Southwest signed the deal and knew the impact of the deal and still made the deal.  Now it would like the deal changed but it has resorted to bullying the City and other airlines in a courtroom.  Take some responsibility for agreeing to a bad deal and be a leader in solving the problem.

And not for nothing SWA, Love Field isn’t your own private airfield.

A pox on American Airlines for forcing such a deal when it had everything it needed already at DFW.  Your desire to constrain trade was so strong that you politically forced a deal that has hurt the city, hurt Fort Worth and hurt other major benefactors to the community (SWA and supporting industries).  That’s No Bueno and you could be a leader in getting this changed but you won’t.  You have your own airport and you’re damned if you’ll help a city or a sister airline in any way.

A particular pox on Aviation Director Mark Deubner for not identifying the risks and addressing them via the Dallas City Counil so as to not impede commerce at the airport.

A big pox on Fort Worth for clinging to the idea that inhibiting Love Field is what’s best for Fort Worth.  Major metropolitan areas have multiple airports.  It wouldn’t be so bad for you to fire up some flights into one and let’s talk about how you built Alliance Airport with the expectation that it could have “overflow” from DFW.  The fact of the matter is that Fort Worth is big enough to support a smaller airport with services.  Your insecurities against Dallas show up time and again in the airport game and it hurts the entire metroplex.

And lastly, a pox on both State and Congressional leadership in this area.  Who are you keeping happy?  This has been a legislatively botched compromise over and over again.  Bringing political solutions to a market area problem has resulted in a mess.  I am not a Republican and I am not a Democrat either.  I believe regulation is good but I believe political constraints on commerce for a single situation in this area is stupid.  Undo the stupid and allow the market forces to develop transportation responses according to genuine needs.

This is a metro area of nearly 7 million people and the only major metro area that is politically constrained by Congressional law in this way.  Let it go, things will work out and I promise you that the city of Fort Worth, a city of 1.8 million people, isn’t going to be forced to drive to Dallas to take an airplane ride.

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