American Airlines Meeting on Love Planned With Head of Dallas Airport Friday
The battle over Love Field may be heating up, as American Airlines executives have scheduled a meeting Friday with the head of the Dallas airport.
But the world's largest carrier won't say why.
Fort Worth-based American leases three gates in the airport's east concourse for about $300,000 a year but hasn't flown from Love since Sept. 11, 2001.
"I wish I could tell you" what the meeting is about, said Terry Mitchell, assistant director of aviation for the city of Dallas, which owns the 32-gate airport. "It's just that nobody knows."
One possibility is that American wants to return to Love Field if Congress exempts Missouri from the Wright Amendment, which would allow flights to Kansas City and St. Louis.
Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American, said his company meets with airport directors all the time and does not discuss publicly what the meetings are about.
The U.S. House and the Senate are expected to vote Friday on a transportation-spending bill that includes a provision to exempt Missouri from the Wright Amendment. The law restricts long-haul commercial flights from Dallas Love Field to Texas and seven nearby states.
The bill, which at this stage can't be amended, would need to be signed by President Bush to take effect.
Love Field has not received "any real interest" from other carriers about starting service, Mitchell said. Southwest Airlines and Continental Airlines are the only commercial carriers flying out of the airport now.
"From time to time, we do have airlines just looking at the situation at Love Field," he said. "That's just the nature of the business, just taking a look at the situation and seeing if perhaps there's an opportunity for them."
Southwest has said it would be interested in flying nonstop from Love Field to Kansas City and St. Louis.
American has been studying the legislation and is considering what to do in response, Wagner said.
Some traffic between St. Louis and Dallas could shift to Love from American's hub 12 miles west at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, Wagner said.
If the Wright Amendment were repealed entirely, American has said it would be forced to move a large number of its flights from D/FW to Love to compete with the new long-haul flights that Southwest would start up.
A large portion of American's frequent fliers live in the Dallas area and would find it more convenient to fly from Love than from D/FW, American has said.
American operates 11 daily nonstop flights to Kansas City from D/FW and 12 to St. Louis.
American and Southwest are No. 1 and 2, respectively, at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
Southwest Airlines welcomes the competition, said Ed Stewart, a spokesman for the low-cost carrier.
"They've been there before," Stewart said. "Of course it doesn't make any business sense that we can see, but that's up to American management to decide."
American moved flights to Love Field in May 2000 to compete against luxury carrier Legend Airlines, which started up service from a stand-alone, six-gate terminal on the far side of Love Field.
Legend failed in 2000.
With all of the political wrangling lately, it's hard to say whether American's nondisclosure of a meeting agenda is unusual, Mitchell said.
"These are unusual times," he said. "The issue of operations at Love Field [is] politically charged, so it's hard to determine what the driving factors are. We're just open to anything right now."
Staff writer Maria Recio contributed to this report.
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