1980

Now that Southwest was firmly locked in place at Love Field, American Airlines set its sights on Dallas' hometown airline, Braniff International. Braniff had been based in Dallas for years and although they were the marketshare leader, occupying all of Terminal 2W, American was a strong number two - occupying all of Terminal 3E except for two gates leased to Eastern.

Although the two cities - for the most part - no longer had competing airports, they did have competing airlines thanks to American's relocating it's headquarters to Ft. Worth. The contest changed from being which city had the busiest airport, to which city was home to the biggest and best airline, Dallas' Braniff or Ft. Worth's American.

American launched its hub operations at DFW with the first wave of new flights added in June, 1981.

Braniff already had a pseudo-hub at DFW, although they had added so many cities to their route system after deregulation, that each new city didn't have very many daily frequencies, something important for an airtine catering to the business traveler.

For every flight Braniff operated, American matched them flight for flight and then some. American tried other tactics as well.

From Splash of Colors - The Self-destruction of Braniff International (Hardcover), by John J. Nance, 1984 (page 310-311)

The Braniff world headquarters sits on the western flank of DFW, nearly a mile from the Braniff terminal itself. To get from the terminal to the complex (which includes the Braniff House Hotel and the crew training facilities as well as the company offices) Braniff ran a shuttle bus every half hour.

On an early Monday morning in mid-February [1982], Braniff Vice President Sam Coats sat with fourteen Braniff crew members as the shuttle bus headed to the bunker and the Braniff House Hotel.

Suddenly, he and the other employees realized that what they were looking at through the windows of the shuttle was out of the ordinary. They were rolling over the blacktop service road that skirted the end of the western runway (17R/35L). The runways on the western side and the eastern side were connected by taxiways that traversed bridges - one on the north, and one on the south end of the terminal complexes. The bridges permitted even the giant 747's to taxi serenely over the divided highway, which ran literally through the middle of DFW.

On this cool, clear morning, standing on the taxiways leading to the end of the Braniff-side runway and stacked in a long line all the way back over the north bridge like a traffic jam were sixteen American Airlines jetliners of various types waiting for takeoff.

Coats leaned forward, trying to get a better look through the window as one of the captains spoke. "Have they closed down the east runway?"

One of the first officers who normally transited DFW replied "Naw, that's just started in the last few weeks. American's guys keep asking for the west runway - even if they're going to New York. Take a look at that jam-up. Any question what they're trying to do?"

The group watched the scene as the van headed past the runway end, toward the hangers and the worldheadquarters. A growing number of departing Braniff flights were holding in various places by the Braniff terminal, waiting for ground control to sequence them for takeoff between the American jets.

"You mean they're trying to delay us? Why on earth? They're delaying themslves, too."

The question went unanswered.

Other rumored American Airlines tactics included making ficticious reservations on Braniff flights, resulting in lots of "no shows" for Braniff; exiting active runways in an untimely fashion causing go-arounds for aircraft behind them (usually Braniff); and calling up Braniff, asking them if they could take on additional passengers from AA flights cancelled due to mechanical reasons. Braniff would arrange for additional catering for these passengers, then at the last minute the AA plane would be "fixed" and the extra passengers wouldn't be flying on Braniff after all.

Both airlines engaged in fare wars. Because there was competition between the two, DFW travelers enjoyed affordable fares and the area prospered even if the two airlines didn't.

A downturn in the economy, rising fuel prices and an August 1981 air traffic controller strike didn't help matters and in the end - less than a year after American Airlines began hub operations at DFW - Braniff International filed for bankruptcy in May of 1982, thanks in part to its over-ambitious expansion plans and helped along by AA's aggressive competitive tactics.

In addition to American's headquarters facilities, which were in the city limits of Ft. Worth, on the site of the now-demolished Greater Southwest International Airport, construction in Terminal 2E provided seven new aircraft boarding gates for AA. An 800-foot connecter was built linking these new gates to AA's existing gates in Terminal 3E.

Frank Lorenzo of Texas Air Corporation had set out in 1981 to take over Continental Airlines, then debt-ridden, just as the company's labor agreements were about to expire. When the takeover was completed in June 1982 - less than a month after Braniff's shutdown, Texas International, which had a sizeable presence at DFW occupying 12 gates in Terminal 2E merged with Continental in 4E and ceased to exist as a separate airline.

As Continental began shifting DFW flights to Houston Intercontinental, where it was building its own hub, the old Texas International gates were left vacant, but not for long. American leased those, too. Ozark and Frontier, Terminal 2E's other carriers occupied the first seven gates in 2E, but by 1988 both of them were gone too - Frontier having been absorbed into People Express in 1986 and Ozark merging with TWA in 1987. AA grabbed those gates also and continued expanding their DFW hub.

American was then and is now the undisputed king at DFW, and as a result, DFW travelers pay a king's ransom for long-haul flights compared to the rest of the nation.

American would like to keep things that way.

The folks at Southwest aren't fools. They've watched as American has used every trick in the book to run off the competition, regardless of the short term cost. Southwest will never be at DFW, at least not as long as AA has a big presence there.