1989

While AA was growing at DFW, Southwest was growing, too, just not so much at Dallas Love Field. Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Albuquerque were added to the system with flights to Love Field in April 1980, and for the next couple of years Southwest increased frequencies on their existing service elsewhere around the state.

In 1982 they ventured further west, opening Las Vegas, Phoenix, and San Diego all on the same day - January 31. quickly followed by Kansas City in February and Los Angeles in September.

Denver was opened in 1983 with flights to Albuquerque and Phoenix, but service was discontinued in October 1986. Until recently, the last new Southwest service added at Love Field was to Little Rock in 1984.

1985 saw the addition of Chicago's Midway Airport, St. Louis, and Ontario, CA, followed by Nashville in 1986 and Birmingham and Detroit in 1987.

1988 saw no new cities, but Southwest added Indianapolis and Oakland in 1989. None of these new Southwest cities had service to Dallas Love Field, however because of the restrictions of the Wright Amendment.

Back in Dallas, in 1989 groups then associated with the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce started pressing for a repeal of the Wright Amendment.

In September 1989, the Dallas City Council authorized a resolution requesting Congress to repeal the Wright Amendment and replace it with a 650-mile perimeter rule. This would have allowed any carrier to fly nonstop to any destination within 650 miles of Love Field and would have permitted through-ticketing to points outside the perimeter.

Not surprisingly, one month later, the Fort Worth City Council came out in opposition to the repeal or modification of the Wright Amendment. A deal's a deal, they said, even as they were in the midst of constructing their own industrial airport which, when completed, would compete with DFW for cargo and freight business.

In 1990, the DFW Airport board released a study by KPMG Peat Marwick warning that lifting and diluting flight restrictions at Love Field not only would slow development at DFW but would lead to more congested skies at both airports. It would be the first in a series of doom-and-gloom predictions from the DFW Airport Board about how life as we know it in the Metropex would come to an end if the Wright Amendment is ever repealed.

In July of 1990 the Dallas City Council changed their minds and authorized a resolution affirming support for the Wright Amendment.

By now it had been a dozen years since deregulation and airfares had come down dramatically. More and more folks around the country could afford to fly.

The legacy carriers built large hub and spoke networks in busy cities with large airports like Chicago, Atlanta or Denver. Both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines maintained large hubs at DFW, although Delta's was smaller and confined to one terminal.

The low fare carriers built point-to-point networks and in cities with more than one airport, they often chose to fly out of the smaller secondary airport like Midway in Chicago or Hobby in Houston. Utilizing secondary airports was one of the goals of the Deregulation Act, but apparently not when that airport was Dallas Love Field.

Also in 1990, Southwest became a major airline when it exceeded the billion-dollar revenue mark. Burbank and Reno were added to Southwest's network and Terminal 4 in Phoenix opened, enabling Southwest to move out of the cramped and outdated facilities they'd used in Terminal 1.

Two years later, in April 1992, the mayor of Dallas again offered a resolution to repeal the Wright Amendment. This action precipitated a lawsuit between Fort Worth and Dallas, which resulted in Dallas once again dropping its efforts to have the amendment repealed.

In July of 1992 staff members of the Federal Trade Commission said a proposal to permit airlines to offer and advertise limited direct and connecting flights from Dallas Love Field to destinations beyond the Wright perimeter area could boost competition and relieve congestion at DFW, thus potentially saving consumers both time and money.

According to the FTC staff comments, prices for tickets from DFW to destinations that cannot be served from Love Field are significantly higher than fares from Houston to those same destinations. This suggests that loosening restrictions on Love Field may increase competition and lower fares to consumers flying into or out of DFW.

The staff comments also suggest that fares from Love Field to certain destinations may be reduced. This could result because, under the proposal, passengers who currently must purchase two separate roundtrip tickets to fly from Love Field to destinations outside the five-state area would be permitted to fly to those destinations on a less expensive single ticket.

In sum, the staff said, "Modifying the restrictions on the use of Love Field would likely increase airline competition, increase airport capacity, provide added convenience, and reduce congestion at DFW. As a result, consumers in Dallas, Fort Worth and elsewhere could benefit substantially." Those resulting benefits could include lower airfares to certain locations from both airports, lower parking and commuting costs, and reduced delays, the staff said.

Unfortuately for Metroplex consumers, every time Dallas talked about trying to get the Wright Amendment repealed, Ft. Worth, American Airlines and the DFW Airport Board -- collectively referred to as The Boys -- growled "lawsuit!" or put out a doom-and-gloom report and put an end to their efforts. Meanwhile, folks around the rest of the nation continued to enjoy the benefits of airline deregulation, while long-haul flyers out of Dallas Ft. Worth continued to suffer.