Southwest: Love fest with trinkets and big toys

So far it's been almost a love fest, the battle over Love Field in Dallas and the limits that the 1979 Wright Amendment put on flights to and from the close-in airport to protect the then-new DFW International airport. In its Set Love Free, Wright is Wrong campaign, Southwest has used its characteristic humour and trinkets: Set Love Free adorns the fanny packs, tote bags, sun caps and other paraphernalia that it sells (at low prices) on its Set Love Free website. The hub, with the backing of much of the business establishment of the Dallas/Fort Worth 'metroplex', has fought back with a serious staid website. Keep DFW Strong, its website, has drawn in community groups, even injecting that third rail of US politics, race and ethnicity, with testimonials for Latin (Hispanic American) groups. The argument is ideal for the Southwest public persona of the plucky underdog: "Aw, shucks, we just wanna to fly from our lil' ole' airport to wherever we want. Let big ole American fly from DFW wherever it wants. Fair's fair." Which is inarguably logical as far as it goes. And the counter-argument - "Gosh, you can just go on over to DFW and you can fly anywhere you want" - does not make the test of airline logic.

Now though the empire has struck back with truly Texas-sized trinkets: real airliners. The 800-pound gorilla of DFW, American Airlines, has moved to start flights from Love Field, a move that defies airline logic every bit as much as would a move by Southwest to operate at DFW as well as Love. The reality of course is that both are network carriers, and that neither benefits itself by splitting a node of its network. American admits as much when it says that adding Love flights was hardly its first choice but was an unavoidable response. American acted after the Southwest campaign gathered enough momentum to win another exception, this time a last-minute amendment that added Missouri to the list of states that are allowed nonstop Love service. That pointed a dagger at American's minihub at St. Louis, the last remnant of its 2001 takeover of the thrice bankrupt TWA. Adding love flights was the lesser of two unpalatable choices, American is saying. So this is no longer a Love fest, but perhaps that is the way the airline business is meant to be: airlines compete with each other, sometimes with sharp elbows, and so do airports.