Spring - 2006

DFW Airport said it would support ending limits on flights from Dallas Love Field if Love Field would agree to close nearly half its gates, DFW also wanted officials to consider creating a regional airport authority - possibly placing all local airports under control of DFW's board.

Under the proposal, Love Field, which had 32 gates, could end up with as few as 18 gates, forcing Southwest to give up some terminal space,

Southwest, said the proposed gate reductions wouldn't serve customers well.

Ron Ricks, Southwest's chief lobbyist, said

"It's a ruse. To tell customers that they have the freedom to fly anywhere, but can't have any flights because there aren't enough gates, is not freedom."

Later, Southwest Airlines CEO. Gary Kelly said they would consider giving up some of their gates at Love Field if it would speed up a Wright repeal. They declined to say how many gates they'd be willing to part with and pointed out that American had rights to 120 gates at DFW -- about six times as many as Southwest had at Love Field.

As part of any deal to repel Wright, Southwest also proposed immediate through-ticketing, allowing passengers to fly from Love Field to any U.S. city on a single ticket if they first stopped within a Wright state.

Regarding the idea of a regional airport authority, Mayor Miller said that while the idea wasn't new, it had a lot of merit, adding that she and Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief had been discussing the concept since late November, and that she was originally hoping the issue would be part of the Wright discussions.

Privately, officials at American Airlnes close to the Wright issue said they were skeptical that a regional airport authority would ever come together in North Texas because of control issues between Fort Worth and Dallas.

Implementing such a plan wasn't expected to be easy. The two North Texas cities battled for years before they were compelled by the CAB to work together to build DFW. Even then, Dallas County voters rejected creation of a regional airport body in 1967.

In early June, reports emerged that the Love Terminal Partners, which owned the Legend terminal, said they were close to signing a deal to sell the facility to a publicly traded airline.

When Mayor Miller found out, she wanted the Dallas City Council to study options for acquiring the former Legend terminal, including seizing the property through eminent domain, saying

"We need to make it very clear to the public that we don't anticipate there being airlines operating out of that facility ever again,"

Love Terminal Partners asset manager Alan Naul said he'd had extensive talks with the Federal Aviation Administration about the terminal's potential demolition.

"The FAA is going to come down on them like a load of bricks if they start tearing down any part of Love Field, because the country will need more airport space in the future as air passenger traffic continues to grow."

In the end, the airline, Pinnacle Airways called off the deal. A lawyer representing Love Field Terminal Partners, said the mayor's actions had "disastrous consequences" for the terminal's owners, adding that Mayor Laura Miller "had absolutely no authority" to state that the building should be taken over and prevented from serving as an airline terminal. Alan Naul sent a letter to Ms. Miller blaming the mayor for the deal collapsing.

"Your public remarks have caused the suspension of our negotiations, and have played a critical role in destroying the value of this asset," he wrote.

Another idea tossed around was to simply close Love Field and redevelop the land, but closing Love Field could cost Dallas taxpayers upward of $150 million.

Southwest had spent $150 million to build facilities at Love Field over the last 30 years, including the company's 950,000-square foot headquarters, a 200,000-square-foot simulator building, 650,000 square feet of maintenance hangars, a 40,000-square-foot data center and about 100,000 square feet of warehouse space.

In Southwest's view, any move by the city to close the airport would probably be for "noise control" reasons. In the event of a noise closure, the city would be bound by a December 1986 "noise buyout" agreement.

Under the 1986 deal, Southwest agreed to the considerable expense of accelerating its use of what's called "Stage III hush kit" technology to quiet its fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft, thereby reducing noise at the airport.

In exchange, the City of Dallas said it would never impose any other mandatory noise restrictions, If it did, the city would buy out Southwest's improvements at the airport at current market value.

While American was one of those strongly pushing to close Love Field, they said they would expect compensation for being forced out of Love,

Meanwhile, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that more North Texans were flying to Missouri after that state's exemption from the Wright Amendment.

Data from the U.S. Department of Transportation indicated the number of passengers flying to St. Louis or Kansas City from either DFW or Love Field rose 43 percent in January and February, the most recent data available, compared with the same period in 2005, far outpacing overall traffic growth at the two airports, which was about 5 percent.

The data appeared to confirm what some analysts had predicted all along -- that Southwest's lower fares would stimulated demand for travel at both airports.

As the June 14 deadline approached for the two mayors to submit a compromise for their respective city councils to vote on, details of the compromise were leaked to the press.

They included phasing out the Wright Amendment over eight years while immediately allowing through-ticketing. It was also reported that Mayor Miller warned Southwest's CEO that landing fees would be raised at Love no matter what the details of the compromise.

Southwest's Ed Stewart said that an eight-year phaseout "seems like a long time." He added that the timing could improve if certain regions were allowed sooner.

Regarding the issue of higher landing fees, he asked,

"Do you really want extremely high landing fees at an airport that's not growing? There's nothing to spend it on. What are they going to do with all the money, just look at it?

American said they were disappointed that the discussions did not include the possibility of closing Love Field.

The mainstrream media reported that negotiations were going well, but the Dallas Blog told a different story.

A city councilmember close to the ongoing Love Field negotiations - but who has not been directly briefed by the mayor - has just laid out for DallasBlog what's going on behind closed doors right now.

Here's the skinny: Southwest has given Mayor Laura Miller an ultimatum on at least one demand. They want a minimum number - as high as 16 or 18 - gates that would be exclusively for Southwest use, or they are gone. Outta here. Splitsville to Phoenix. No compromise.

Whether or not this was true remained to be seen, but the very idea caused outrage among many Dallas citizens.

Some were beginning to think that the mayor of Dallas was looking out for the interests of Fort Worth instead of what was best for Dallas. They'd find out soon enough, though. The press conference -- originally scheduled for June 14th was moved to June 15th. Everyone had waited years for this moment. They could wait one more day.

Tune - You Are So Beautiful To Me
(Joe Cocker)

(Sung to Dallas Mayor Laura Miller)

(Lyrics for Intro)

(We'll all make sure you pay)