November - 2005

The Congressional Hearings were held on November 10, 2005. In his excellent blog The Schnurmanator, Mitchell Shnurman of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram gave the following account of the day's proceedings.

Members of the press were outnumbered at least 4-to-1 by advocates who flew in to voice their support for the status quo.

At least 10 officials from assorted chambers of commerce were there, along with airport directors from Texarkana and San Angelo, and the mayor of Abilene.

Kevin Cox said that if Love is freed and departures soar there, landing fees will double at the big airport. "To attract a carrier to D/FW will be virtually impossible,"

Passenger traffic will fall to levels seen 20 years ago, and it will take 19 years to get back to the base line. "We'll pay a penalty of 39 years by abiding by the rules,"

Said Steve Luebbert, director of the Texarkana airport: "I represent the victims at the end of the food chain. Just as business is rebounding, along comes the Wright repeal."

Monte Elliott of the Fort Worth black chamber said that minority and women-owned businesses would take a huge hit if Wright goes away. "Local MWBs stand to lose more than $455 million in contracts won over the last two years."

But no one went as far as Adelfa Callejo, former chair of the Dallas Hispanic chamber and for four years a member of the D/FW Airport board.

She said Southwest had violated every one of the tenants of being a good corporate citizen, because expansion at Love would pose a safety and noise threat to more than 3,000 Hispanic students.

"The Latino community ... demands more honesty and integrity from Southwest Airlines and compassion for our Latino families and their children, who are the forgotten victims in this needless debate."

(What about all the Latinos who work for Southwest and the millions who save money on airline tickets? I asked. She said this was about the children.)

Back to her scripted comments, read to the crowd with vigor. "Southwest Airlines and its spin doctors are distorting the truth," she said. "The airline's ads lead people to believe that Southwest is being discriminated against ...

"In fact, it is Southwest that is discriminating against all the citizens of Dallas by blackmailing the city and threatening to move its headquarters � and by failing to keep its promises to its neighbors and city leaders ...

"Bottom line � Southwest has never been a particularly good neighbor."

American's Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said that Southwest knows that 60 percent of American's D/FW Airport passengers live closer to Love Field than D/FW Airport, yet it has a "virtual lock on the lion's share of Love Field's active gates."

"Southwest wants to have its cake and eat it too," Arpey said. "It champions the free market, but will not compete at D/FW. It wants to lift restrictions on what it can do at Love Field, but opposes changes to the local Love Field Master Plan that would let airlines like American challenge its dominance there."

The always-colorful Herb Kelleher didn't disappoint the crowd.

HERB'S PERSONAL REMARKS:

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members of the Aviation Subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to be with you.

I started working on the birth of Southwest Airlines 39 years ago, when only about 15 percent of American adults had ever flown on even a single commercial airline flight.

Today, that percentage is around 85 percent. According to DOT, the "Southwest Effect" played a crucial role in increasing that 15 percent to 85 percent.

Because the CAB of the 1960s did not welcome price competition against its carriers, Southwest applied to fly as an intrastate airline. Southwest's proposal was very simple: charge much lower fares and provide a higher quality of air service than the incumbent CAB carriers.

From the reaction, you might have thought that we had proposed to unleash the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The incumbents:

  1. Threatened to withdraw service from every city we proposed to serve -- sound familiar?

  2. Contended that low fares would not produce any additional passengers -- sound familiar?

  3. Hired every politically connected lawyer and lobbyist in the State of Texas to oppose us -- sound familiar?; and

  4. Took us on a four-year journey through the courts before we could fly our first flight.

Southwest commenced operations in Texas in 1971. What happened? Not one airline withdrew service from any city we served. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse did not ride-but a huge multitude of additional passengers did.

In 1972, Southwest was sued to oust us from Dallas Love Field-a move that would have obliterated Southwest. This resulted in five more years of litigation, including two more trips to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; and three proceedings before the U. S. District Court in Dallas. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals admonished:

"This is the eighth time in three years that a federal court has refused to support the eviction of Southwest Airlines from Love Field ... "

What next? In 1978, the Airline Deregulation Act became law. The CAB authorized Southwest to provide interstate air service from Love Field.

Then fate intervened -- the Honorable Jim Wright was the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives and represented DFW Airport. Without notice or hearing, he amended a House bill to ban all interstate air service from Love Field. The Senate refused to concur.

A political donnybrook ensued. Senator Goldwater commented: "I think we're acting like a bunch of yo-yos, why can't people fly to the airport they want to?"

Finally, I was informed that the Conference Committee had agreed on a compromise: nonstop interstate service could be provided out of Love Field to only the four states contiguous to Texas. Moreover, Southwest could not provide one-stop, through ticketing, nor market, passenger service beyond those states. I protested bitterly until reminded of a self-evident truth: that Jim Wright was the Majority Leader and I was not.

Thus, airline deregulation passed in 1978 and Love Field was reregulated in 1979, when I was 48 and Jimmy Carter was President of the United States. In the ensuing 26 years, DFW Airport has gotten so big that I'm surprised it wasn't implicated in a BALCO steroid scandal:

  1. 18,500-acre DFW now has 166 gates compared to 32 at 1,300-acre Love Field;

  2. DFW is the world's third busiest airport.

  3. The world's largest air carrier, American Airlines, with about 850 daily DFW flights (almost eight times more than Southwest at Love Field), controls 84 percent of the passenger traffic at DFW and does not exactly welcome interlopers with warm milk and graham crackers.

  4. Due to its dominance, American Airlines charges high fares at DFW -- its generally available one-way coach fare to St. Louis and Kansas City is $599.00; Southwest's generally available coach fare would be $129.00; and

  5. Since 1979, the DFW side of the Metroplex has grown enormously, while the Love Field side has lagged.

According to a study by Campbell-Hill, which we commissioned, AND a separate study by DFW (which it attempted to suppress), failure to repeal the Wright Amendment will cause approximately 3.7 million passengers per year not to fly each year and cost the American economy $4.2 billion each and every year. What policy supports such a result?

I firmly believe that the Wright Amendment must be repealed-and repealed now! But, a number of well-intentioned public officials, organizations, and private citizens have solicited a compromise proposal to phase out the Amendment over a period of time.

As I have stated numerous times publicly, if the political leadership comes forward to advance any reasonable compromise proposal, Southwest Airlines will participate in that process in good faith -- THAT is my public pledge to this committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear on behalf of competition; consumer choice; lower air fares for millions of Americans each year; and on behalf of the American public's Freedom to Fly.


Congressional Hearing Song

Tune - The Trolley Song
Judy Garland

(Sung by Herb Kelleher)


Southwest stayed out at Love Field
D-F-W flipped
Thanks to the Wright Amendment
Low-fare wings at Love Field have been clipped.

Southwest fought hard to stay there.
And the courts, they agreed. (But)
Congress passed the Wright Amendment.
Now it's time for Love Field to be freed.

So many - p-l-a-c-e-s
Love can't go
Like Phoenix, Boise,
West Palm Beach and Buffalo
And Kansas - C-i-i-t-y, Tampa - B-a-a-y
And Philadelphia, Detroit and San Jose

HA! HA! went the other airlines.
Up, Up, Up, went their fares.
All North Texas flyers suffer
So we're asking Congress please
(We'll get down on hands and knees)
Just take a - s-t-a-a-n-d
Won't you give us a - h-a-a-n-d?
Com-pe-ti-tion is grand in this land
And we don't quite understand
How Wright - f-l-i-e-s
Congress - unlock our skies.



This site was started by an Austin flyer and is dedicated to North Texas residents and employees of Love Field and Southwest Airlines who are working hard to get this law repealed. This site is not affiliated with Southwest Airlines, Dallas Love Field or the City of Dallas.

For more information on the Wright Amendment and to find out how you can help, please visit the following websites.


Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1