Frank F. Matthews wrote:
> oconnell@slr.orl.lmco.com wrote:
[snip]
> > There was an investment made in DFW by many parties. The Wright
> > amendment was part of the deal. WN has taken to undermining that
> > deal. They will probably ultimately succeed. Whether that is right or
> > not is a function of how you see the role of governments in regulating
> > markets.
> >
>
> It would be interesting to look up the history. As I remember everyone
> was asked to agree to move to DFW and when everyone had signed on they
> built. Alas Southwest had not been a part of the package and the city
> of Dallas was not inclined to close an airport that might be of use. I
> remember the amendment as an attempt to keep down Southwest and force
> them out of out of state expansion. It has hurt Dallas but not
> Southwest who invested their resources elsewhere.
[snip]
I'm not even sure WN was around when the deal was struck, but I
don't
think their presence had anything to do with it. At the time, their
supposedly
wasn't suppose to be enough business to support 2 airports. They
needed
to consolidate both Love and Fort Worth in order to have enough to
support such a large airport. IIRC Fort Worth even agreed to plow
under
their airport, which they did. Love wasn't suppose to be used either
and
that was the deal, both Fort Worth and Dallas would commit to DFW.
The Wright Amendment was part of that whole deal. Of course that was
like 40 years ago and a little bit has changed since then. A big one
of
course is that DFW became a hub, even though the airport was built
to be a point to point airport. In there somewhere, WN figured out
it was better to fly to less used airports and avoid delays. Dallas
never
plowed their airport under, and now we find ourselves here.
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