Wright Amendment compromise: I guess a third of a loaf is better than none

I'll only call it a third of a loaf because of:

1. The eight-year wait to actually lift the Wright flight restrictions.

2. Southwest agreeing to just 16 gates at Love Field instead of, say, 24. (On the other hand, that's still more than the 14 they operate now, though they own more than that.

3. The poison pill that Southwest has to forfeit half its gates at Love if Congress passes a plan with a faster timetable.

Was Southwest CEO Gary Kelly that desperate? Is this a sign he thinks Democrats will gain a majority in Congress in November, so it's better to sign off now on this inter-city deal between Dallas and Fort-Worth, and between Love and D/FW, and present it to Congress rather than waiting?

Well, without stating the reason why, Southwest founder Herb Kelleher said his airline was in a hurry.

As Herb says here:

“We need to get this done quickly. Neither of us is interested in having year after year after year of campaigning and lobbying and fighting going on if we can possibly avoid it.”

In any case, if this gets approved by Congress, the through-ticketing restrictions get lifted immediately.

There are other reasons to look askance at what may be little more than Wright-lite even after the eight years have passed and the long-distance flight restrictions have been lifted.

First, we still won’t have international travel from Wright. I know, I know, Southwest doesn’t do international travel. But, especially if “Airline No. 3” had more than two gates at Love, don’t you think they’d be interested in flying business travelers to Mexico City? Or maybe Toronto or Ottawa? Or, going back south again, tourists headed toward Cancun or Puerto Vallarta would love to hop a flight from Love. But, with just two gates to use, it’s doubtful Airline No. 3 would do that. Of course, Houston Hobby, similar to Love, is also a domestic-only airport.

For that matter, with only two gates, will Love get an Airline No. 3 to even jump in the fray? Sure, Southwest likes to talk about the dominance of American at D/FW, but taking the two airports together as one service area, American and Southwest together really have the Metroplex blanketed. Continental already sounds uninterested. Jet Blue is still new enough it’s not going to spread itself that thinly across two airports in one metropolitan region. And, and …

What happens to those gates if nobody takes them within, say, three years? Does Southwest get first shot at them? American? Do they remain idle? Do they get withdrawn?

Besides eventually giving us something better than what we have now, the only unmitigated good I see coming out of this is the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth acting together as an ersatz airport authority until we get the real deal some day down the road. Oh, yes, increasing the landing fees at Love also is very sensible.

Finally, will opening Love up really make that much difference? Here’s a complete list of cities that Southwest serves out of Houston Hobby. A lot of it is in-state service:
· Albuquerque, Austin, Baltimore/Washington, Birmingham (AL), Chicago-Midway, Corpus Christi, Dallas-Love, Denver, El Paso, Fort Lauderdale, Harlingen, Jackson (MS), Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Midland/Odessa, Nashville, New Orleans, Oakland, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Diego, Tampa, Tulsa.

According to Flight Aware, Hobby runs 317 commercial flights a day. Love Field runs 216. (For comparison, DFW runs 1,339 a day.) Sure, Southwest is going to want to ramp up operations with through ticketing eliminated, even before long-distance flight restrictions are removed in eight years. And, perhaps they haven’t been running their operations at Love at full throttle.

And, we need to count the total 20 gates, not just the 16 that Southwest will get.

BUT… can all airlines at these 20 gates really get anywhere close to 317 flights a day with just 20 gates?

Let’s do a little simple math. The six additional gates is a 30 percent increase. Now, 30 percent of 216 is 65. Add 216 and 65 and you’re at 281. Now, that’s in the neighborhood of 317, but it’s still 36 fewer flights. For comparison, Hobby has 22 gates. It seems a better solution would have been to open Love to 22 gates, give Southwest one more for 17, leave American at two (they do little flying from Hobby, and likely wouldn’t use more than 2 gates at Love), and leave three gates for “Airline No. 3,” along with providing for reversion or non-use provisions for these three gates.

If this version of Wright repeal passes as stands, where will Southwest fly that they don’t already? Take the list of its Hobby flights, and remember that with fewer gates, you have to prune that list. Throw out Jackson and Jacksonville off the top of your head. Cut back the service it already offers to Birmingham, and probably to Little Rock. Look for it to trim all the smaller in-state service and only fly to the cities it does from Hobby.

In-state, either Lubbock or Amarillo flights get eliminated, or both get severely trimmed. Harlingen gets trimmed, too, I’m guessing.

And that’s your list.

Finally, does American really need eight years to adjust to this? In that case, we need to call it a dinosaur airline, not a “legacy airline,” and wonder if it has troubles deeper than Love Field. Heck, even GM can get a new car design on the road faster than that.

In other words, just as before its 1980s breakup, AT&T long distance service was a cash cow for local service, is American’s service at DFW a cash cow for its operations elsewhere in the country? Is it really on that rickety of financial legs?

Also, from the tourist traveler point of view, with this removing a major "apples and oranges" comparison problem, I hope that, if Congress approves this, that Southwest immediately starts listing its flights again on Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, etc.