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October 3, 2006
Bye Bye to a Bad Law
Congratulations to Southwest Airlines and the people of Dallas and Fort Worth. With the Wright Amendment dead, the DFW area will finally have two full-service major airports, and thus better service at lower prices for people flying there. If Ft. Worth decides to refurbish Meacham Field, there can be three major airports in the DFW area. Given the amount of air traffic needed to support that many passengers, three fields (DFW as the major one, with smaller airlines and shorter hop flights at the other two) makes a huge amount of sense. The only losers are American Airlines (which effectively has a controlling vote in what happens and D/FW International), and D/FW International's airport board. For everyone else, this is a huge improvement.
For those not aware, the Wright Amendment was instituted when D/FW International was built, to ensure that it would be viable. That is, the Wright Amendment was effectively the granting of a monopoly by the Federal government. Like most monopolies, the effect has been largely negative. D/FW was built because the two existing airports could not handle expected air traffic increases in the Dallas and Fort Worth municipal airports. Unfortunately, D/FW alone could not handle that traffic, either, by the middle of the 1990s. The lack of competition resulted in D/FW being one of the most expensive airports in the country to fly into or out of.
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