Posted on Tue, Jan. 03, 2006

Time to make plans editorial

Star-Telegram

The Love Field Citizens Action Committee was not a happy group as Southwest Airlines prepared to begin nonstop service between Dallas Love Field and St. Louis and Kansas City on Dec. 13.
For good reason.

The members of the group, formed in 1981 as a coalition of residents and neighborhood organizations concerned about the impact of the airport's operations on their nearby homes, thought they had a deal with Southwest not to expand Love's operations -- and with Dallas city leaders not to allow that to happen. They worked hard with representatives of Southwest and with other interested parties to write a Love Field master plan putting that agreement in writing. The master plan was signed by a Southwest representative and approved by the Dallas City Council in 2001.

The master plan stated clearly that nonstop flights from Love Field had been restricted since 1979 to Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, with a modification in 1997 to add Kansas, Mississippi and Alabama. Those restrictions, the plan said, were "assumed to remain intact" for the future.

Southwest set out more than a year ago to change all that. No longer the fledgling airline that Love Field nurtured, Southwest is a giant that wants the restrictions removed so it can operate a nationwide schedule from Love. Congress recently added Missouri to the list of states eligible for nonstop Love Field flights.

The Love Field neighbors objected to Southwest's new Missouri service in a Dec. 12 news release, saying that the flights "gut" the Love Field master plan and make it "irrelevant."

"The City of Dallas must now determine how to proceed in the absence of a Master Plan for Love Field that once held great potential but is now null and void," said the news release.

Strong words. Well-put. All true.

....

As Southwest has pressed its arguments in Washington, the head of the Senate's aviation subcommittee, Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana, has said that he would like to address the Love Field restrictions in a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill scheduled for 2007.

Dallas City Council members clearly have some work to do during the next few months. As their constituents from the Love Field neighborhoods point out, the 2001 Love Field master plan is now out the window, and the airport's largest tenant, Southwest, wants to make it even more a relic of the past.
The council members must decide where they stand on the prospect of unbounded growth at Love Field and whether there is some way to rein in that growth.

Here's a hint: Without flight restrictions, there is little to limit Love Field, at least until it gets somewhere near where it was in 1974 before the opening of Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Love Field then operated 55 gates, as opposed to 16 in operation today and a limit of 32 in the now-defunct 2001 master plan.
Dallas Mayor Laura Miller wants to tear down six inactive gates (the ones located on Lemmon Avenue, away from the main terminal, and once operated by Legend Airlines) and adopt a new master plan with a limit of 26 gates. Nice idea, but it will never fly.

Count on this: Opening Love Field to nationwide operations by Southwest will draw in other carriers. American Airlines already has announced plans to begin service between Love Field and St. Louis, Kansas City, Austin and San Antonio on March 2, using two of its currently inactive gates at the Dallas airport. To gather the airplanes and other resources for this move, American will reduce some of its current service at D/FW.

Other airlines will follow suit if Love Field expansion continues, simply because an awful lot of good airline customers live in Dallas. Even the Love Field master plan's market analysis points out that 57 percent of
D/FW customers live closer to Love.

In pushing for the elimination of Love Field's flight restrictions, Southwest's executives extol the benefits of competition. If they can offer those fine Dallas customers Southwest's discount fares to fly anywhere in the country, they say, other airlines will reduce their fares, more people will fly and everyone will benefit.

Those same benefits would come if Southwest were to offer its brand of competition at D/FW, but its executives have refused to do so.
Congress embraces airline competition, and Southwest is having some success with its arguments in Washington -- hence the elimination of the restriction on nonstop flights to Missouri.

But for the Dallas council members, the favorable federal view of airline competition has a cutting edge. For one thing, federal law says an airport can't treat one airline better than its competitors. That includes providing access to gates.

As more airlines show up to serve Love Field, what's the council going to do? How can it say that only 26 or even 32 gates will be available when the airport once bustled with 55 gates?

As the Love Field Citizens Action Committee said in its news release: "Instead of the forecasted short haul service out of Love Field, there will be long haul service. Instead of forecasted growth in smaller and quieter regional jets, the growth will be in larger and louder planes. Instead of the Master Plan's noise, air pollution and ground traffic congestion projections, there will be new ones more onerous to the neighborhoods. Instead of balance between the airport and the surrounding community, there will be imbalance."

How about it, Dallas council members? What are you going to do?

Of course, you could fall back on your 40-year-old agreement with the city of Fort Worth to support D/FW Airport as the exclusive provider of long-haul travel service for the region.

Fort Worth still stands behind that agreement. Does Dallas?