Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
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.
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.
See above.
Carl
Staying in DAL was a smart move by Southwest that fit their business model. Nothing unfair about it, as the courts agreed. No guaranteed monopoly, just good business. But, to say they had no competition is a stretch. Consumers always had the opportunity to fly the legacy carriers out of DFW. Southwest just had a better product at a better price. The legacy carriers knew this and attempted to hamstring Southwest with the Wright Amendment - not fair, but arguably good business.
They are big enough now, but they fought the amendment from the start. It impeded their market access, so to say it favored some how them isn't quite accurate. If it did benefit Southwest, American would not have been the ones pushing for it.