Love Field would shrink but Dallas travelers would eventually be able to fly from the airport near downtown to distant cities under an agreement announced Thursday by American Airlines, Southwest Airlines Co. and the mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth.
If approved by Congress, the deal could end decades of squabbling over Love Field, which escalated into an all-out lobbying and public-relations fight between Fort Worth-based American and Dallas-based Southwest.
Each airline would get something from the deal.
American, the nation's largest carrier, would win eight more years of limits on long-haul flights at Love Field, which is closer to Dallas business travelers than American's hub at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Love Field flights would still be limited to a nearby nine-state area during that time.
Southwest would be able for the first time to sell tickets from Dallas to distant cities - called through-ticketing - instead of forcing customers to buy two separate tickets.
Southwest also would solidify its stranglehold on Love Field, getting 16 of the 20 gates that would be left after the demolition of 12 other gates. And aging Love Field would get a new main terminal.
The deal's immediate benefits for travelers were less clear.
Southwest executives said through-ticketing would cause fares to fall, even though passengers making long trips would have to go through nearby cities such as Houston or Albuquerque, N.M.
But consumers who wanted immediate repeal of the Wright Amendment, the 1979 limits that Congress imposed on Love Field, were disappointed.
"There's nothing in this for consumers," said Tony Page, a leader of a group called Friends of Love Field. "This doesn't repeal the Wright Amendment for eight years. A significant number of people in the metroplex will be dead by then."
Southwest has been pressing Congress to remove the limits at Love Field since late 2004. It won direct flights to Missouri last year, but a bill to repeal the Wright Amendment has made little headway and is opposed by several key members of the Texas delegation in Congress.
"American has some very, very powerful people on the other side of this issue," said Southwest Chairman Herb Kelleher.
Kelleher said it might have taken four or five years to repeal the Wright Amendment, a factor that Southwest considered before accepting an eight-year extension of the limits on Love Field.
Southwest can get out of the deal if Congress fails to approve the settlement this year. That's a real possibility because Congress has a shortened schedule during this election year, but Dallas Mayor Laura Miller expressed confidence that the support of both airlines would prompt Congress to act.
American did not participate in negotiations until this week. But the airline finally saw the agreement as the best way to prevent Congress from chipping away at the Wright Amendment one state at a time, said Daniel Garton, executive vice president at American, a unit of AMR Corp.
Garton called the eight-year extension of Love Field limits a compromise. "We wanted 1,000 years," he said.
Without the distraction of the fight over Love Field, AMR - which has lost more than $6 billion since the beginning of 2001 - can focus more attention on fixing its business, he said.
Love Field is a small airport that began as a military training base in World War I - it was named for a pilot killed in a biplane accident in 1913. It has remained popular with Dallas travelers ever since because of its convenient location near downtown.
Dallas and Fort Worth officials intended to close Love Field to commercial traffic when they joined together to build DFW Airport on a barren stretch of prairie midway between the two cities.
Civic leaders thought a big regional airport would help the local economy, and DFW's growth has coincided with a long boom in the region. Southwest, however, went to court and won the right to stay at Love Field.
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