Originally Posted by
Flys135s
The Wright Amendment didn't guarantee Southwest a monopoly at DAL. It restricted their market access out of DAL.
It did both. The restricted access at Love and Meacham was the reason airlines were forced to sign the agreement to move out to DFW. The assumption by all parties was that only short duration commuter flights would ever operate at Love again. Then SWA was created and took advantage of the nearly empty Love field. The other airlines were angry and the various governments were too. They wanted SWA to move to DFW like everyone else. SWA sued under the opinion they couldn't be made to move to DFW because they weren't signators to the original agreement to move. SWA won that suit and were allowed to grow without competition. That's what created the SWA monopoly at Love.
Originally Posted by
Flys135s
If it was such a good deal for Southwest why would they be opposed to it and American in favor of it?
Because Southwest is large enough and healthy enough to no longer need monopoly status to survive. Now that they're large enough, they no longer want the very law that protected them because they now don't want the temporary restrictions that were included.
Originally Posted by
Flys135s
If the termination date was inserted to end Southwest's "advantage" why would Southwest spend so much money and campaign so hard to repeal it?
See above.
Carl