Bye bye Wright

The Wright Amendment. A rule imposed by 1 man at the behest of 3 of his major contributors to restrict flights from Dallas Love Field to anywhere outside of Texas and the 4 states directly surrounding Texas and later amended to include Alabama, Mississippi, and Kansas. An anti-competitive law that stifles affordable air travel from Dallas and protects the 800 pound gorilla, DFW. It's time for the rule to go. Proponents of the law say it's needed to ensure that DFW maintains it's role as the main airport in the region. They say it was an agreement between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth when DFW was being built and it should be maintained. They say it's a law and shouldn't be changed. Here's what I say. Laws are made. Laws are un-made. Things change and laws become obsolete. This is one of those laws. DFW is the main airport operating over 1000 flights a day all across the nation. Dallas Love is only allowed to have up to 250 flights and will never grow to the point of challenging DFW. It's like restricting a Mom and Pop store because it could hurt the Wal-Mart 2 blocks away. Let's really call this law what is was, a favor. A favor by the then Speaker of the House Jim Wright to the 3 major airlines in Dallas who were po'd that Southwest won in every court case and were to be allowed to operate from Love Field instead of being forced to fly from DFW. In other words, the law was on Southwests' side. Southwest won in court and the only way to get even was to call in a favor from a politician. This restriction is outdated and needs to be repealed. The law is a holdback to the times when airlines were regulated by the government. When de-regulation was passed for the airline industry, Love Field was forgotten and left in that year.
Perhaps back when DFW was a fledgling airport and growing it needed some type of stimulus or protection, not anymore. It's the 3rd largest airport in the country and no longer should be afforded this benefit. Face it, if it can't survive without the protection of this law, maybe they need to look at making some changes? It's the 800 lb gorilla that was raised in a cage and is now afraid to go back to the wild and compete with the rest of the animals.
Competition is good for the consumer and even business. As with many laws made decades or centuries ago this one has become obsolete and it's time we got rid of it. If we can't change laws or adjust our rules to accommodate changing times we may as well get used to living in a world that never evolves.