AS at Dallas Love Field (DAL)
 

AS has added six daily roundtrip flights from DAL, bringing the total daily departures to 19:

PDX 3x daily (+1)
SAN 2x daily (+1)
SEA 4x daily (+2)
SFO 4x daily (+1)
SJC 3x daily (+1)

This added flying begins on August 27, 2019

WHAT!?!?!?
LOL!
Well good for them. And a Christmas present (albeit for 2019!) for me.

Looks like a little bit of gate squatting to hold their territory at DAL, but great to see nonetheless.

19 daily departures doesn't seem like gate squatting to me. They only have two gates, so that's 9 or 10 flights per day, per gate.

That was my thought, too. Ten or eleven daily operations per gate is about max usage, when you account for the unofficial 6A-10P departure "curfew." It's great to see AS fighting to keep its routes.

As an FT armchair route planner, the additional SFO flight makes the most sense and the third daily flight to PDX is the headscratcher. I'm also surprised that there is not a fourth frequency to LAX and the new flights start in August, rather than May or June.

Haha... they were dared by the city of Dallas to fully utilize their gates and BAM they do it... nice. I will enjoy those extra SEA flight times! Unfortunately, I have to wait until August?? :( I don't know if I will be flying there as much by then.

Anyone have text describing the dare?

Good for AS and DAL... although wish there was some kind of lounge there- had a multi hour delay connecting this year.

As a more or less disinterested observer I have enjoyed watching all of these airlines squabble with each other and the City of Dallas over gates at DAL. Living in Houston, DAL is purely an O&D airport for me. It's fine enough as long as you don't have to spend much time there but it is way too crowded and busy at peak times.

Southwest to Dallas: Make Alaska Airlines share Love Field gates with Delta

A bit of history: The original deal for the 20 gates was WN got 16, UA got 2 and AA got 2. UA later allowed DL to use one its gates, then eventually subleased both gates to WN (which agreed to accommodate DL for six months), creating the current DL-WN conflict. The AA gates were subleased to VX as part of an antitrust settlement. AS inherited those gates in the VX merger.

About nine months ago, I emailed both Priority Pass and the Aviation Department asking them to talk to each other about lounge options.

Pro tip: Avoid the core and hang out at the concessions just past security or near either end.

Woohoo! Great Christmas present for me!! I fly PDX-DAL almost every week (though I have a break until Feb). The flights are always pretty full (though I realize that does not translate to profitability). I've been praying for a third afternoon flight. I keep hoping PDX will be the beneficiary of route cuts at other stations.

I connect almost all the time to AS using WN from West Texas, and not including MCI, DAL is perhaps my least favorite airport for connecting. Sometimes I us WN all the way, but usually I fly AS for the long route of PDX to DAL. I willingly take the risk of a misconnect, but I've been doing this nearly 2 years (almost every week) and so far I've been lucky, no misconnects (though I am sure it will happen at some point). As for lounges and crowds, DAL really is the worst. I so wish DAL had a lounge for quiet time, but lounges are not really part of the WN model. Usually the least crowded gate areas are the AS gates - that's where I sit, even when flying only WN. That's also where the airport workers sit on their breaks. They know about the lack of AS activity. Sounds like that's changing in the fall:D

No one has pointed out the fact that WN is trying to force AS to give up some of their gate space to DL. With the full on lovefest between AS and DL, it is less surprising to me that AS would rather add more flights than give up space to DL.

Bottom line, WN has the vast majority of gates and does not want to share.

Applaud for the additional services to SFO/SJC/SAN. :D. One can only hope that AS will add new routes to east coast.

DFW would be more helpful as it connects with AA.

Well, this may buy AS some time. But we'll see if these new flights actually fly... 8 months is a long time. AS could be out of DAL by then, just like LGA and DCA.

The question is, which is losing more money: DAL or the SFO/LAX transcons???

There is a lounge at Love Field... the Li'l Love Lounge
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f898cffa91.jpg

As tempted as I was... I avoided that lounge :D

If you had only seen a panqueque machine ....

Last time I was there the Priority Pass sign was out....

For comparison, WN has 10 daily departures/gate at DAL, one of the highest it its entire system. 20 flights a day in/out of a 16 hour period is full capacity if not a little over.

If AS plans on flying an Embraer or Airbus (pre reconfig), this would be a smaller plane and thus less turn around time needed in theory. So it could be done, but doesn't leave much room for delay etc.

Props to them for actually expanding at DAL. I for sure thought they were going in the opposite direction so this is a pleasant surprise.

Did United ever have any gates in the new terminal? The one time I flew UA in & out of DAL, they had one or two gates in the crappy old terminal. It was a pain to get to and from. I believe that DL was also flying out of there at that time. This was probably 4 or 5 years ago. Before UA left DAL did they ever get to fly out of the new terminal where WN is?

No. UA signed a lease for two gates while it was still operating in the old terminal. It subleased them to WN prior to the opening of the new terminal.

I've always wondered if 15 and 17 are the "UA gates"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dayone (Post 30574927)

No. UA signed a lease for two gates while it was still operating in the old terminal. It subleased them to WN prior to the opening of the new terminal.

---

That may well be true, but UA did fly out of new terminal.

One of two flights that I booked ended up on AS, thanks to UA not having enough deicing fluid, and me hopping bus / Orange Line to DFW to fly AS to SEA, because UA was not going to be flying anytime soon.


Actually, no.

UA flew 76 seater CR7s to IAH. Ask me how I know ;)

The gates were IMHO in better shape than what WN used, and yes easy to get in and out.

Would not know about baggage - I was gone before it came out ;)

AS could add service to cities with no WN competition. Examples:
DAL-EWR
DAL-ORD
DAL-MIA (but would have to open a new MIA station)
DAL-BDL (some risk and also Hartford is not currently an AS station)

Hi -

I miss flying PDX-DFW-LGA and racking up those EQMs at .04 apiece.

Um, WN flies DAL-LGA/MDW/FLL - close enough for most, and actually preferred by many @:-)

And AS has made it plenty clear IMHO that they have no intention of flying EAST from DAL - that was a Virgin lousy idea. They won DAL when AA was forced to divest at DAL and could not figure out what tp do with it.

There are some that don't prefer MDW, LGA, or FLL.

Locals would know more but I think the ORD market over the MDW market is small. This includes those from Rockford and northern Chicago suburbs, like Niles.

EWR does have a big market that prefers EWR to LGA. Those from West Orange, Saddle River, Morristown, and much most of Northern New Jersey.

MIA does have a market that prefers MIA to FLL, mostly the city of Miami but not Broward County.

So, DAL-EWR seems like the biggest market of the three over competing airports that are served by WN. One problem is that only O&D would fly the route. Not many from SEA, PDX, SFO, SJC, LAX, or SAN would want to fly to EWR via DAL.

My last SEA-BOS was via SAN! ;) Followed by a BOS-PSP via SEA & SF0 and 6 other segments! Yes there was a companion certificate involved. :) lol

James