Wright Amendment

[sgrandjean]

Woo hoo! The Wright Amendment repeal has been signed into law. Eight years to go until full repeal, but at least I can fly more directly now than I have been able to in the past. Finally, David (Southwest) gets to compete with Goliath (American) thanks to those idiots in DC.

My most recent trip out of state (Chicago this past March), cost the state of Texas $588 thanks to the Wright Amendment. I enjoyed wearing my "Set Love Free" baseball cap with my suit on the American flight. If I had been allowed to fly Southwest (even with two stopovers), the state would have saved almost $350.

I'll take the cheerful attitude of the Southwest folks and the 'cattle car' boarding process over the crabby American personnel and their assigned seats any day.

Cheers.

[Sponsored Links]

[jdm]

Wright amendment? Orville and Wilbur Wright amendment? Frank Lloyd Wright amendment? Russel Wright (50's designer) amendment?

Fill us in.

[flatfloor]

David Wright all star 3rd baseman NY Mets dummy. :D

BTW, I love S'west they fly out of a regional airport near my home (Islip MacArthur) so I avoid LaGuardia and/or JFK. No traffic, no parking problems, no boarding lines and excellent friendly service. Cheap too, for me, senior fare to Vegas $139 one way non stop. :tup2:

[Scooter]

This must be a regional thing. Never heard of it.

[flatfloor]

Scooter, be quiet and get back on your treadmill. :D

[bbcamp]

Wright Amendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Amendment)

[sgrandjean]

Scooter:
This must be a regional thing. Never heard of it.

Lovingly named in honor of Jim Wright, former Speaker of the House from Fort Worth, TX.

It prevented commercial airplanes with more than 56 seats from flying non-stop out of Love Field, unless they first stopped in states which bordered Texas, to include Arkansas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma.

The original language of the Love Field Amendment, more commonly known as the Wright Amendment, a provision in the larger International Air Transportation Competition Act, was as follows: "Prohibits a common carrier operating in interstate commerce from performing regularly scheduled commercial passenger flights into or from a satellite airport lying within 20 miles of a major regional airport, where the proprietors of the satellite airport and the regional airport board have determined such restriction is in the best interest of the public and aviation safety. Stipulates that such prohibition does not apply to commuter airline operations."

The uproar directed at Mr. Wright from executives at smaller airports in the State of New York caused the language to be revised to only apply to Love Field in Dallas. Further amendments to the Wright Amendment, the Shelby and Bond Amendments, modified the law to allow flights to the states of Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi and Missouri

I understand that Mr. Wright is now a professor at TCU in Fort Worth, and teaches a course there titled "Congress and the President."

I'm flying down to San Antonio next week, and it looks as if I might get a free cocktail or two thanks to the repeal news!

Cheers.

[John Bridge]

Scott, I prefer our other Texas airline. Continental has served me well, and the prices are very reasonable. Southwest scares the hell out of me. It's like a stampede. ;)

[MHI]

I thought it was names after the wright brothers, after all they were the first to fly.:D

[sgrandjean]

John,
I haven't had much opportunity to fly Continental, but I take it they are Houston's 'hometown' airline?
Cheers.

[Eugenius]

:shrug: Southwest is the most profitable airline in the world. Will the repeal of the Wright Ammendnent swell Southwest's profits or simply relegate it a seat in the aisle in bankruptcy court? Jury's out.
My thought is that is that if it's working, don't mess with it.
But, Herb is gone.

[swait]

Herb isn't gone. I see him several times a week. He's still Chairman of the Board.

[cx]

Welcome aboard, Dennis. :)

C'mon, tell us your connection.

Were you around back in the seventies when SW got started?

I'm fuzzy on some of it, but I do recall that SW would never really have gotten off the ground, so to speak, if it hadn't been for the Wright Amendment, no matter the intent and all the infighting. I'll hafta ponder it some and see if I can recall exactly how that worked. I do seem to remember it wasn't as black and white as it seems now. Alas, many, many sleeps since then.

But what I remember most was trying to control the inbound rushes and pulling alla SW "Fluffs" (that's 737s to y'all) outa the pack of the other airliners bound for DFW and fittin' them in with alla little bizjets going to Love. A good time was not always had by all. :D

And I well remember also that Herb's was the only airline company that didn't want a lot of official paperwork to allow any local air traffic controller to come ride along in the cockpit of any of his flights any time there was an empty jump seat. His attitude matched mine on that score: the more the pilots and controllers knew about how the other had to operate, the better for all concerned. Of course, getting a free ride somewhere you wanted to go was the real reason a lot of our guys took those "fam (familiarization) flights," but the net result was some enlightenment on both sides.

Naturally, the FAA allowed that to go on for only a very brief time before they decided it needed to be stopped because.................well, because they were the FAA. There was still a Fam Flight program, but the FAA made it so bureaucratically cumbersome that only a small minority of controllers participated. Except on SW in the early days when you just went over to DAL, introduced yourself to the flight crew, asked permission to ride along, and got aboard.

Off topic, I know, but just to point out that Herb was a man of good ideas in all aspects of running his airline.

'Specially the hot pants. :D

[flatfloor]

CX, it's fairly obvious by Dennis' user name he's a SouthWest Airline Idiot Trainer

[cx]

That's tacky, Flatfloor. :mad:

'Less maybe he's trainin' some idiots from Braniff. :D

[flatfloor]

:tongue:

[swait]

I wish I had been there in the early days, but I lived up north then and had never heard of Southwest Airlines. Been with them for about 7 years now.

Flatfloor came close on the name, but its I diotic T echnology, not Idiot Trainer.

SWA was already flying by the time the Wright Amendment came along. The Wright Amendment was put in to protect DFW Airport which was a brand new airport at the time. With 5 terminals now and being one of the busiest around now, I think DFW will continue to survive without the Wright Amerndment.

I stumbled on this website a couple of months ago while trying to find out how to build a shower pan. I finished my bathroom now, but just enjoy reading the site and getting ideas for future projects.

[cx]

Well, it was all a bit circus-like when it started. I mean, really, all the airlines at GSW (Greater South West Airport) and DAL signed a contract saying they'd all move to DFW when it opened and not never again fly an airplane outa no other airport inna area and that was gonna for sure make DFW viable. Good eye-dee.

So they opened DFW and Closed GSW (now that was fun!) and then suddenly realized that upstart SouthWest over to DAL never signed the agreement? And everybody (American and Braniff et. al.) was really pissed because Herb and them decided it would be really profitable to service DAL since everybody done moved out? I do recall thinking, "Duh?"

But Jim Wright, (D Ft. Worth) was fixin' to save the day, but I think there was good reason to believe the big guys were actually gonna find a way to keep SW from flying outa DAL at all and The Amendment actually protected at least what they were doing at the time. And doing soooo very well.

It was a fun to watch alla lyin' and cheatin' and bribin' and politicin' that went on, but it sure was a bitch to control the traffic sometimes. :)

And you're right, Dennis, I don't think DFW is in any danger of loosing its market share anytime soon. Indeed, I'm a little surprised no one has made a serious effort to expand that airport north of Ft.Worth, the name of which I forget. Or maybe they have and I just haven't heard about it? DFW gotta be about outa extra real estate by now.

[jjwq8]

Any truth to the rumor that Braniff has been bought out by the JDL and plan to change their name to Goniph?

[Davy]

Kelly, Alliance is North of Ft. Worth, not sure how much it has grown. That's not far from where I've been working, still alot of room to grow up there. :)

[cx]

Yep, that's the one, Davy. And now you'll tell me the big-name Ft.Worth family that owns all that.

CRS gits worser ever day.:D

[sgrandjean]

Kelly,
Iff'n I remember correctly, the main reason that the DFW Airport Board dropped it's opposition to Alliance was because it would handle only cargo traffic and some general aviation. I believe that's still the case.
Cheers.

[Davy]

Ross Perot owns land all over the place, I guess he already owned all that land up there near Alliance Airport. He likes buying up land around small airports, even the small airport in Mc Kinney is surrounded with Perot's land from what I hear. Ross actually lives in Dallas.

The new race track (Texas Motor Speedway) isn't far from Alliance, I say "new", I think its been there about 10 years now. Still nothing really built up around it. :)

[cx]

Any major battle over Alliance woulda be after my time, Scott. I left the area in 1985 and didn't pay much attention after that.

Is it the Bass family owns that?

[Davy]

I thought it was the Perot group that was behind Alliance but I could be wrong.

I have a friend that has 170 acres a mile or so from the race track. He tells me he gets letters and phone calls nearly weekly from the Perot group and others wanting to buy his place. He doesn't even open the letters anymore, straight to the trash can. He keeps telling them, "but I've got cows on that land". :)

[sgrandjean]

It happened shortly after you left the area, say 1986-1988. However, I wouldn't say it was a major battle. There were several cargo carriers who told DFW that they would be doing business at Alliance because DFW had gotten way too big...and that was only fourteen years ago. Ross Perot, Jr. not only owned the land on which Alliance sits, he was the lead developer in the project. I think that Perot's company, Hillwood development, still plays a major role there.

[Eugenius]

Swait, do you also know P.J.? (a vp)

[swait]

Hmm, been thinkin all nite on that one and can't for the life of me think of a VP with the initials P.J. There's a R.J., but no P.J.' s that I can think of.