http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/archives2/014164.html

THE MOST AMUSING WRIGHT AMENDMENT POST YOU'LL READ ALL DAY

A very alert FBvian sends us something from the historial archive. The following is taken from Hard Landing, a 1995 book by Thomas Petzinger, Jr., recounting the history of the airline industry:

“On June 11, 1981, at DFW, American Airlines conducted the biggest overnight expansion in airline history. … There were airplanes everywhere. … American’s mammoth expansion required the airport to make use of a third runway — an alternate, diagonal ribbon of concrete known as Runway 13L, intended mainly for use during heavy crosswinds. …

“Beyond Runway 13L, in the middle of an area that local boosters called the Metroplex, the jet din was radiating repeatedly, on a schedule like Chinese water torture for the eardrums. … The ensuing community uproar was almost as loud. [Then American Airlines CEO Robert] Crandall fought back. … American wasn’t to blame for the noise problem at DFW, Crandall said. The culprit, he said, was Southwest Airlines. …

“Crandall argued that the noise could be abated by letting American’s planes make a hard right turn after leaving Runway 13L, but they could not do so, he said, without intruding upon the airspace around Love Field, where Southwest operated all by itself. …

“The solution to the noise problem was not to curb American’s expansion, he said, but to cut back on Southwest’s ‘unbridled growth.’”