SWAjet

from the Dallas Morning News:

Logic lacking from Wright backers
by Mark Davis
12:02 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Those who join me in calling for the unplugging of the Wright amendment share two beliefs.

First, an open marketplace for Southwest Airlines (and others) at Love Field would bring American Airlines fares down at D/FW International Airport, and second, AA and D/FW can withstand that competition and perhaps even benefit from it.

The factions fighting to keep the shackles of Wright on the flying public have two replies:

1) The "Southwest effect" would be so meager that the fare reductions would not be as thrilling as people say, and

2) Opening Love Field would be a seething disaster for American and D/FW, wounding the local economy for heaven knows how long.

Anyone notice that those two are contradictory?

Wright amendment proponents need to make up their minds. Love Field is either so small that it cannot spur lower fares at D/FW, or so dauntingly large that it will cripple one of the planet's largest airports and one of its biggest airlines.

This is the irrational bed Wright's advocates have made for themselves, wrapping themselves in its quilts of outdated logic and concocted fears.

Wright made sense when it passed in 1979. D/FW Airport had to have every chance to flourish; there was simply too much invested in it to subject it to the vicissitudes of the marketplace.

The success Wright helped create at D/FW is now the best argument against keeping the law. The voices at American and at D/FW invoke apocalyptic economic doom if little Love Field opens up, and most people have correctly shaken their heads in disbelief. How odd is it that those of us looking to scrap Wright have more confidence in AA and D/FW's future than their own leadership seems to have?

D/FW is one of the world's great airports. American is one of the greatest airlines in the history of aviation. 9-11 knocked them both against the ropes.

The best road to recovery for all airlines and airports comes not from stifling competition, but from additional years of safe skies and a strong economy, so that more and more people can conjure the confidence and money to fly.

The best point Wright supporters make is that Love Field should have simply shut down when D/FW opened for business.

Well, it didn't, and we don't have that magic time tunnel to take us back to relive the history that drives Wright's fan base nuts more than a generation later.

In a textbook case of the pot calling the kettle black, former AMR CEO Robert Crandall has scolded The Wall Street Journal for its pro-consumer stance that Wright should be overturned, arguing in a recent letter that Southwest has enjoyed "a unique monopoly position" at Love Field.

American can fly from Love anytime it wishes. Meanwhile, those Southwest fliers are really getting gouged, aren't they? You can see them grimace as year after year they make Southwest the rarest of all corporate species – a profitable airline.

If you want to see monopoly pricing, examine American's fares to various cities from D/FW, and then compare them with the cost of the trip from any other Texas city where Southwest is a direct competitor.

This proud, massive airline and a very proud, massive airport are following understandable instincts: They are fighting for their bottom line. But the scare tactics must stop and Wright must go. It is ridiculous to dwell on bad blood and what-ifs from the era of disco and bell-bottoms.

After D/FW and AA shake off an initial sting, lower fares will create more demand for flights to and from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. As the vast majority of our area's growth extends north and west, D/FW will remain the favored airport by a vast majority of fliers.

Reps. Sam Johnson and Jeb Hensarling have boldly introduced the Right to Fly Act, which would repeal Wright immediately. There is no excuse for any Texas member of Congress – especially not the Republicans, who are duty-bound to support free markets and consumer liberty – to stand in its way.