Nuts About Southwest

It seems to me that the traveling public does not really win from this settlement. American's dominant position at DFW is not challenged, Southwest's dominant position at DAL is not challenged (and gates will actually be demolished to protect that dominance; good for Southwest, bad for traveling public), and Southwest is (still!) prohibited from effectively competing with American for another eight years.

I also find Laura Miller's lack of support for Southwest appalling. It is almost as if Ft. Worth has two mayors and Dallas has none.

If Colleen and Herb are happy, I'm happy. Congratulations to you guys from far west Texas.

And one clarification please - one can book and buy a ticket from DAL to PHX (or LAX, or PDX) provided that plane stops in El Paso or Albuquerque? Or any other city in Texas and the surrounding states? Then it will be another eight years before you can go non-stop from DAL to PHX?

I am a big SW customer (companion pass last several years) and a big fan - I weave SW in to many of my technology blogs.

On the Wright Amednment. You will probably cringe because you want it behind you, but I just blogged below asking Congress to remove the proposed 8 year long haul phase out. You have been punished enough - why another 8 years?

http://dealarchitect.typepad.com/deal_architect/2006/06/eight_years_is_....

Dude! (Yanqui Gho Hohm)
You're missing the point! We've had this albatross around our neck for 30+ years!
Another 8 to have long-haul priviledges to all SWA cities is marvelous. You think
these schedule changes come easily? One-ticket travel will now be a reality.
Lots and lots of money is now to be spent on DAL, making it practically a new
terminal. This agreement gives us time to plan effectively and carefully, with
the uncertainty of the unknown out of the way. It's a WIN-WIN situation, and we
should be glad the Wright Amendment is finally proven Wrong and soon to be
Waylayed for good.

I too have been waiting for this day to come since coming to this industry in 1979. Although, I had
to endure 9 yrs. outside of Southwest Airlines, I always knew that we would finally have our "day in
court" thanks to Herb. And, despite the fact that we are not out of the woods yet, I believe as my
grandpa used to say "son just bring the ship home and dock it and please don't tell me about the
storms".

When I read the Kelleher quote, I thought of this quote:

"My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime
Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe
it is peace for our time."

That was what Neville Chamberlain said in 1938. The result was the bloodiest war in history.

Southwest has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I have a feeling that many in Congress will see this deal as a complete sharm, but it's hard to tell. It's quite disappointing.

As we expected, Colleen's post has generated some passionate comments, and we understand the feelings of those who are disappointed in the eight-year provision. In the negotiations, all sides had to yield some points on which they were very passionate. However, politics is very uncertain, and you can never be sure about what will happen. Without this agreement, there were no guarantees that what we wanted would have happened in a reasonable amount of time. While we had a lot of public and political momentum, you must keep in mind that it is much easier to stop legislation than pass it. As it is, we still face a battle in getting the agreement through Congress before this Congress disbands at the end of the year, but with all the local parties agreeing to the provisions outlined in the agreement, we are hopeful the agreement will become law. (When the new Congress takes office next year, the entire legislative process has to start over for any bills leftover from this current Congress.) Bottomline, everyone wins with this agreement, and since we can immediately offer our low fares from Love Field to the entire nation, once the bill is passed, North Texas will have fare competition and additional travel choices.Â

To Herb, Colleen and Gary -- I offer my congratulations on getting this far in this hard-fought battle. Having flown with you from DAL since almost Day One, I have been affected many, many times by the additional legs of trips that were required to make a trip from my home to a "non-Wright" state. However, also having to occasionally (as rarely as possible) fly on the "other" Metroplex-based airline, I was always reminded why it was worth it to give my business to SWA and to avoid D/FW like the plague. Love Field and SWA have ALWAYS been, and always WILL be, my airport and carrier of choice. My only regrets as we stand on the edge of changes in the Wright Amendment is that making those 'extra' stops with separate tickets meant extra Rapid Rewards credits! (sure, it was elitist, but I used to like the feeling of being in "The Company Club" and taking "The Company Plane" on trips! Although my employer does have our own 'company plane' [a Falcon 50], the 737s based here were easier to get on and had more head room!)

Please keep up the struggle to fight for the 'freedom to move about the country' that we all deserve. We truly appreciate your efforts over these many years!

****

To Brian -- as I read some of the blog comments here and the letters to the editor in The Dallas Morning News, I think that there are many people who do not have a full grasp of the logistics of manuevering through the world of politics. Having been involved in Dallas County politics in an elected position for 18+ years, I've been far enough in from the fringes to see a glimpse of some of the inner workings of the giant monster known as 'compromise'. As the old joke goes, there really ARE two things that you don't want to see made: sausage and legislation. It ain't a pretty sight. Well-meaning elected officials are often stymied in their desires to advance legislation because it is not a simple process. Gathering sufficient support to pass a bill is not significantly unlike selling a house. You start out with what you want (to sell your home for the highest possible price) and over a period of time and effort, you wind up settling for what you can get (selling it at a reduced price but at least finally selling it). SWA and its many loyal customers would love to have all aspects of the Wright Amendment end tomorrow. We may have to settle for a phase-out program that may include giving up some gates at DAL. But, even if the terms aren't ideal, we (SWA and its customers) are moving forward. It is like the imagery of "is the glass half-full or half-empty?" Compromise can either be viewed as "look what we had to give up" OR it can be viewed as "look at what we've gained." As an optimist, I prefer to choose the latter and be happy that while things may not be perfect, they are better than what they were. Football teams don't always score touchdowns on 100-yard runs from the opposite end of the field. Sometimes, they advance the ball 2, 5, or 8 yards at a time. Sometimes they move forward 25 yards and then lose some yardage and have to back up a bit. This brokered deal between the cities of Dallas and Ft. Worth, the DFW board, American and SWA is not a pure touchdown yet, but we ARE moving the ball a great deal of the distance towards that end zone! Let's hear it for the home team! YAY!!

We LUV y'all,
Kim

Kim, with due respect this affects way more than DFW...as SW commercials say "freedom to move about the country"

it is a bit disappointing that my old home towns - both Dallas and Fort Worth have hijacked this issue for so long...I live in FL and can fly non-stop most everywhere to the Midwest and NE on SW, but to fly West my choices are more restricited or involve multiple ticketing/changes of flight etc. Not exactly freedom to move about the country...

Vinnie,
Thanks for your comments, and I can certainly understand your frustration. My own in-laws, who spent 55 years of their lives in Texas, have now lived in Baldwin County, Alabama (Gulf Shores area) for ten years after retirement. They were very spoiled by years of jetting around on SWA and hoped very much that SWA would decide to include Pensacola in their system. That obviously hasn't happened yet.

I think that one of the things that makes the 'free enterprise' system so good is that it encourages initiative and hard work. The founders of Southwest looked at a market that they believed had sufficient demand to support another airline, and decided to take a risk. That gamble has paid off over the years and many people have benefitted from that little start-up airline, from the investors to millions of travelers in 35 years. I believe that companies that take a risk should have the ability to be rewarded for their efforts. If some guy in your town sees the need for a great homemade style hamburger and manages to open a restaurant that serves the best burger for miles around, he should be able to reap the benefits of meeting the demands of the marketplace. As the word of his excellent product spreads, people from neighboring towns should also be free to drive to his restaurant to savor that tasty treat.

But, what if a government agency decided that his little start up burger joint was a threat to the success of the national burger chain locations in town and told him that he couldn't sell his hamburgers to anyone outside of a six-block radius of his store? After all, if he made a burger that was too good and too popular, folks might stop driving to the national chain and that chain might suffer in your town. Of course, the national chain would thrive all across the rest of the country and the world, but it wouldn't be good for the new guy to threaten their success in that area.

The cities of Dallas and Ft. Worth have fought like cats and dogs for years. It took brilliant negotiating and tough decisions to compromise on building the new regional airport in this area. Many, many issues had to be worked out before ground was even broken on DFW, and everyone involved feared that any little problem could torpedo this new airport before the first plane managed to take off. So, folks became paranoid and over-protective when SWA came along after the fact (many people overlook the fact that SWA was created AFTER the agreement was signed and was never bound by it since they didn't exist at the time) and tried to find ways to "protect" their new baby. However, they didn't panic at first, because they assumed SWA would fail like a lot of start-up businesses do. But once SWA became well-established, they started to pose a 'threat' to DFW and American Airlines in particular.

Now, think about this. In 1926, a fellow named Charles Lindbergh started offering mail delivery via airplanes and that company grew and merged with others and eventually became American Airways in 1930. By 1945, American Airlines was offering air service overseas as well as its many routes across the USA. This company was quite solid financially and was considered successful by every normal business and aviation criteria for many years. Just over 40 years later, a small airline begins flying in Texas between three cities. (Dallas - Houston - San Antonio) The Wright Amendment was crafted in 1979, eight years after SWA started up and nearly 50 years after American Airlines got going.

Let's examine the logic here, and compare it to our fictional hamburger stand. You've got a strong, robust airline operating out of an airport that is now five years old and doing quite well. But, you've still got that thorn in your side a few miles away. That little burger joint is getting on your nerves because they make very good hamburgers at lower prices and folks are standing in line to get a table there. So, as a competing business, you've got three basic strategies. One, ignore them and hope they eventually go away. Two, begin to aggressively compete with them by looking at what makes them successful and start to adopt some of those ideas. Take your clout and deep pockets and beat 'em at their own game. Or three, you can get a government agency to fight your battles for you. Convince people in authority to try to run them out of business.

But, don't forget that you operate a burger company that is very visible in the public eye. Ignoring the competition would make you look stupid. Battling them head-on would make you look like a big bully taking on the underdog down the street. However, if you can get someone else to try to cut their legs out from under them for you, you can stand in the background and not incur the wrath of bad publicity.

That strategy was pretty good except for one thing. The battle went all the way to the US Supreme Court and the little burger joint kept winning. So, it was finally decided that if they couldn't be shut down, at least their feet could be tied so they wouldn't hurt anyone too much. An agreement was brokered that said the small hamburger stand could keep selling burgers, but their restaurant was limited to 56 seats so they couldn't be too successful, and they could only sell burgers to those in neighboring cities to prevent folks from far and wide from enjoying the 'other' lunch alternative.

Do you want the government telling our hamburger stands (or airlines) how and where they can operate because their success might threaten someone else? What happened to the free enterprise system that says if you build a better mousetrap, people are free to buy it? My contention all along is that American Airlines should have to fight for their survival like every other company in the US. The government does not protect my employer by telling our competitors how and where they can sell a rival product. Companies that innovate and experiment and find ways to meet or exceed their customers' expectations will thrive. Companies that do not value their customers and offer poor service will stagnate and eventually wither.

You said you were from this area, so I would ask you, when have you been to DFW Airport that it seemed to be suffering? That airport is doing very well, as is obvious by the amount of air traffic in and out. Don't be fooled; this battle was never truly about DFW, it was about the big bucks at American Airlines trying to find ways to keep a pesky competitor out of its nest egg on the ground. Despite the verbage, American doesn't seem to be suffering too much either, since they managed to shove Delta out of the way and now enjoy their own virtual monopoly at DFW for domestic service. Delta went from about 225 flights in/out of Dallas per day down to around 21 -- a 90% reduction. And if it was truly about Love Field being open and viable, why did the City of Ft. Worth so enthusiastically get behind Ross Perot's desire to open Alliance Airport? If you want to see something that has hurt DFW, check out the amount of air cargo that comes and goes from Alliance. That is business that is directly out of DFW's income. Yet, as vigorously as Ft. Worth has protested SWA operating at Love and has joined in the suggestion that Love should be closed down, they've never offered to shut down Alliance. And the argument that airports that agreed to close to support DFW should stay closed? That apparently only applies to Love, since Meachem Airport in Ft. Worth is still a busy place.

That's a long-winded reply to your comments, Vinnie, but I don't mean any disrespect to your position. I'm sure you'd love to see SWA be able to operate in ways and routes that they are not currently doing. One way to see that happen is to take the leg irons off of SWA at Love Field. I suspect that if and when those restrictions are fully lifted, you will see better service from Florida to all parts of the SWA route map once travel through Dallas becomes easier. When those restrictions go away, ALL of us will truly be 'free to move about the country'.

Best wishes to you and everyone in Florida, although not to your Miami Heat in Game 6 tonight here in Dallas! ha ha
Go Mavs,
Kim