Dallas / Fort Worth Local News

by Sarah Dodd
DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ― The mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth joined with leaders of Southwest Airlines and American Airlines on Thursday to announce an agreement about the future of the Wright Amendment (click here to watch the entire announcement).

American currently has three gates at Love Field. The airline will give one of those gates back to the City of Dallas, but hold onto the leases for the other two gates. Those gates will become general gates, and the airline might not continue to fly out of them.

Southwest currently holds leases on 21 gates, but only flies out of 16. Under the agreement Southwest will continue to fly out of those 16 gates, but will give up leases on the other five.

Continental Airlines currently has two gates at Love Field, which it will be allowed to keep. Continental did not participate in the deal.

Love Field will operate no more than 20 gates. The City of Dallas, which owns the airport, will spend between $150 million and $200 million to upgrade the airport. Mayor Laura Miller said the upgrades will include a new main terminal, new ticket areas, and improved traffic flow.

Under the plan, the Wright Amendment would be phased-out over eight years. "Through-ticketing" would start immediately from Love Field, which means that Southwest would be able for the first time to sell tickets from Dallas to distant destinations, instead of forcing customers to buy two separate tickets.

Southwest executives said through-ticketing would cause fares to fall, even though passengers making long trips would have to go through nearby cities such as Houston or Albuquerque, N.M.

But consumers who wanted immediate repeal of the Wright Amendment, the 1979 limits that Congress imposed on Love Field, were disappointed.

"There's nothing in this for consumers," said Tony Page, a leader of a group called Friends of Love Field. "This doesn't repeal the Wright Amendment for eight years. A significant number of people in the metroplex will be dead by then."

Flights to and from Love Field are still restricted to the nine states currently allowed under the Wright Amendment. After eight years, those geographic restrictions would end.

Southwest Airlines will not be able to operate more than 16 gates in north Texas. That means Southwest cannot fly out of any airport within 80 miles of Love Field for at least eight years.

If Southwest attempts to fly out of any other north Texas airport, it would have to sacrifice gates at Love Field.

Additionally, if Southwest starts to fly non-stop to additional states, the airline will have to forfeit eight gates at Love Field.

Southwest has been pressing Congress to remove the limits at Love Field since late 2004. It won direct flights to Missouri last year, but a bill to repeal the Wright Amendment has made little headway and is opposed by several key members of the Texas delegation in Congress.

"American has some very, very powerful people on the other side of this issue," said Southwest Chairman Herb Kelleher.

Kelleher said it might have taken four or five years to repeal the Wright Amendment, a factor that Southwest considered before accepting the eight-year extension of the limits on Love Field.

Southwest can get out of the deal if Congress fails to approve the settlement this year. That's a real possibility because Congress has a shortened schedule during this election year, but Dallas Mayor Laura Miller expressed confidence that the support of both airlines would prompt Congress to act.

American did not participate in negotiations until this week. But the airline finally saw the agreement as the best way to prevent Congress from chipping away at the Wright Amendment one state at a time, said Daniel Garton, executive vice president at American, a unit of AMR Corp.

Garton called the eight-year extension of Love Field limits a compromise. "We wanted 1,000 years," he said.

Without the distraction of the fight over Love Field, AMR -- which has lost more than $6 billion since the beginning of 2001 -- can focus more attention on fixing its business, he said.

Love Field is a small airport that began as a military training base in World War I. It was named for a pilot killed in a biplane accident in 1913. It has remained popular with Dallas travelers ever since because of its convenient location near downtown.

Dallas and Fort Worth officials intended to close Love Field to commercial traffic when they joined together to build DFW Airport on a barren stretch of prairie midway between the two cities.

Civic leaders thought a big regional airport would help the local economy, and DFW's growth has coincided with a long boom in the region. Southwest, however, went to court and won the right to stay at Love Field.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)