Analysis of the impact of changes to the Wright amendment.

Details

• Corporate Creators:
  United States. Interdepartmental Task Force on the Wright Amendment
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Aviation Law Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport--Law And Legislation Dallas Love Field--Law And Legislation Meacham Field (Fort Worth, Tex.)--Law And Legislation Wright Amendment
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Dallas (Texas)
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation
• Abstract:
  Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) opened in 1974. To ensure its success
  
  and to provide assurance that the airport could meet its bond obligations, the cities of Dallas and
  
  Fort Worth agreed to move commercial passenger carrier operations from Love Field (DAL)
  
  in Dallas and Meacham Field in Fort Worth to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. At the time, most
  
  of the major carriers serving the area signed an agreement to transfer. Only Southwest Airlines
  
  -- then a small, intrastate carrier -- did not sign. The courts subsequently found it eligible to
  
  continue to provide intrastate service from Love Field. Concern arose that other carriers might
  
  seek to enter Love Field an provide expanded service, a move which might dilute the service
  
  and financial standing of Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The legislative result of that concern was
  
  the Wright Amendment -- a provision contained in the International Air Transponarion
  
  Competition Act of 1979 and signed into law in 1980 that expressly prohibits air service
  
  (including connecting and through-ticketing) between Dallas Love Field and points beyond states
  
  contiguous to Texas, including Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Oklahoma (See Figure
  
  1.1).
  
  Since passage, two views of the impact of the Amendment have developed. Advocates
  
  of change to the Wright Amendment are concerned that the Amendment's restrictions limit the
  
  benefits of Southwest's lower fare structure as well as the potential economic contribution of the
  
  airport. As a result, residents outside the Wright Amendment area, as well as some residents
  
  of Dallas, have argued for changes to the Amendment in order to allow Southwest to expand its
  
  operations and provide low-fare service to more cities. Opponents to changing the current
  
  restrictions believe that removing or changing the current restrictions would violate the original
  
  agreements that supported construction of Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, divert traffic from the
  
  airport, thus weakening justification for plans to expand, and would lead to major capacity
  
  problems.
  
  To date, proposed Congressional legislation and legal challenges to repeal the Wright
  
  Amendment have failed. Legal attempts to challenge the constitutionality of the Amendment are
  
  currently underway.
  
  The controversial nature of the Wright Amendment led to the creation of a U.S.
  
  Department of Transportation (DOT) team to conduct a study of the issues that surround the
  
  Wright Amendment. This team included members from the Office of the Secretary, Federal
  
  Aviation Administration, Federal Highway Administration, and Urban Mass Transit
  
  Administration (now the Federal Transit Administration). Contractors (Apogee Research and
  
  Howard Needles Tammen and Bergendoff) provided technical support. This study does not
  
  make any recommendations; instead it evaluates five scenarios and measures the potential effects
  
  of each scenario on a variety of issues.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:d2b28231faa7528a246f4e53b585a31773912ee1e6d995df18dcefba15f072d8
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/17018/dot_17018_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 6.41 MB ]