Wright Amendment

[hopinglarry]

I am going to play at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana BJT on the 18th and 19th (hopefully) and as I look at my 5 and 6 hour flight times to Louisville from Dallas (850 miles one way), I wonder what would happen without the “Wright Amendment” which will be totally phased out in 2013. I realize that many of you live in the boondocks and have to drive for hours just to get to a big airport. I used to have to drive 150 miles just to get to Dallas.

A little history (I believe it is mostly accurate):

When the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth collaborated to build Dallas-Fort Worth International airport (opened in early 70’s) the various airlines at Love field signed agreements to move their operations to DFW. For some reason, a fledgling airline (Southwest) was not part of the agreement. Southwest only flew, from Love field, to a couple of cities (I believe San Antonio and Austin) when it started operations. Of course, the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth wanted to protect their investment, so through political pressure (I imagine Braniff along with other airlines would have also been involved) the “Wright Amendment” was passed in the late 70’s.

The amendment restricted air traffic from Love field, such that you could only fly non-stop to the contiguous states (New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana) or you had to have a plane with no more than 56 seats (most jets were considerably bigger). Once Southwest started having flights to places like Las Vegas, they could not book you a flight from Dallas to Las Vegas. You had to book a flight to say Albuquerque and then a separate flight from Albuquerque to Las Vegas. In fact, to begin with, when you got to Albuquerque you had to go get your bags at baggage claim, then go to the ticket counter to recheck your bags. This was finally changed at first such that if you had a rapid rewards coupon, they would transfer your bags to the new plane. I remember that the only times I flew there on Southwest was when I found frequent traveler who would sell me a rewards coupon for $100 (actually I believe this was a gift exchange). Then it changed so that they could actually book a flight from Dallas to Vegas and they would transfer your bags (even though you still had to stop in one of the contiguous states). Today you can actually stay on the plane if it is going to your destination.

Southwest used to irritate me by having these nationwide air fare sales, however Dallas was always excluded from the really good ones, because they couldn’t book flights from Love field to all their locations.

The Wright Amendment started phasing out about 5 years ago and Southwest has been able to have non-stop service from Dallas Love to some airports such as Midway and a few new ones. I am sure it helped ticket prices for a few of them. When it is finally phased out in 2013, there will be a number of the big airports that will have some new price competition. I look forward to it and some of you will also be benefactors. There may have been some casualties to the phase out already. We used to have a number of charter carriers from DFW to Vegas, but this has faded away over the past few years. Of course, it may have just been the economy.

I don’t own any airline stocks and at the moment don’t intend to own any. I am sure that the expiration of the Wright Amendment will have some affect on American Airlines. However, Love field has limited gates and will not be expanded greatly because of noise concerns in the Love field area.

Larry

 

[noman]

Well Hoppin....

It very well may be as you say. But, it certainly lead to the innovation of the spoke and hub logistics of airline "travel." And to the overwhelming success of Southwest. In the 80's I didn't mind flying from Love to OK city to St. Louis, to Chicago for $99. Or for more dramatic effect: Ontario, Ca to Phoenix, to Albuquerque to (Tulsa or OK City, or even Houston) to Nashville, to St. Louis, to Chicago. For $99. Each leg was only about 20 minutes in lay over. And in the 80's even, they checked your bags thru. And NEVER lost them. Many times you could stand-by for each leg. (taking the risk of spending the night in OK city. But, it never happened to me.) So since their inception(and restriction under the Wright Amendment) they were and certainly are today, the most profitable, most respected, most loved and most efficient airline flying. Imagine that. Having a restriction placed upon you and overcoming it in SPADES.

 

[hopinglarry]

I loved some things about Southwest in the old days. Free drinks, peanuts and hot pants. They had cheap flights as long as I stayed in the 5 state area. My problem was basically the only place I flew outside the 5 state area was to Las Vegas. At the time, it was the only place to go gamble and play in BJTs. It wasn't until the early 90's that Lousiana got gambling in Shreveport/bossier City and Oklahoma got table games in 2004. It was irratating that I could not book a flight or bags straight to Vegas. I only made a few flights on Southwest having to get off the plane and go get my bags and recheck them. From then on, I would find an employee (or a frequent flyer) that had award coupons (the employees earn them) and have a mutual gift exchange (the employees were restricted from selliing them). What I usually used was one of the charter carriers like Funjet or MLT vacations. I loved it when National existed since they also had cheap flights and non-stops. There was another airline (whose name I cannot remember) whose headquarters was in Minnesota(?) that allowed you to buy round trip tickets from Dallas to Vegas for $50 and you did not have to schedule the trip date at that time, just use the ticket within one year. I remember buying 4 of them because I would go to Vegas 4 times a year. I managed to get all four of them in before the airline went out of business.

I believe that when Southwest started "code sharing" (I believe that is what it is called) with another airline that they could book flights and publish routes outside the 5 state area from Love field.

This statement is interesting "Having a restriction placed upon you and overcoming it in SPADES." Back when I was working, we used to debate this issue. Would Southwest have survived if it wasn't for the Wright amendment? It gave Southwest almost exclusive use of Love Field. The other big airlines did not want to maintain separate facilities and planes at 2 airports that were about 20 miles apart. Southwest had a tremendous advantage for the local commuter flights for the Dallas business travelers. If you had a choice of driving 5 miles or 25 miles to the airport, which would you do? Southwest could have started flying out of DFW at any time, but they haven't. Why get into that hot bed of competition. The big airlines are predatory. When a new low cost airline tries to start at one of the big hubs, the primary carrier will generally match the price and often drive the low cost carrier out of business or at least keep the low cost airline to limited routes. I am pretty sure that Southwest would not have grown as they did, if they had been forced to move to DFW.

Larry