Lynch at Large

American Airlines has making these same empty threats for months. It appears that most experts think that they're full of hot air. As we all know, AA charges a small fortune for many of its flights between Dallas, XNA and LIT (for example). Wide geographic coverage is AA's bread and butter... where it makes the most money.

If they get rid of these routes, they might as well go out of business.
 

I think the loss of local flights if Wright is repealed is an important consideration. There are many other cities where airport limitations make it feasible for one particular airline to focus on short, local, flights. If Dallas eliminates all restrictions they might lose out on these local flights.
 

From what I hear, AA actually makes more money on its flights to smaller markets like Arkansas where it doesn't face much/any competition.

Getting rid of the Wright Amendment will give Arkansas the best of both worlds:
1) continued service on American Airlines; and
2) better flight options on Southwest, due to an increased ability to connect through Dallas to more cities than we can at present.

These folks at AA have a lot of nerve. We all love Wal-Mart, but can you imagine the outcry if they got a law passed which restricted Costco's ability to do business.

Let American and Southwest duke it out in the open market. The customer will win at the end of the day.
 

I agree that Southwest and American should duke it out in the open market. But it's not even and fair competition if they are flying from different airports. The Wright Amendment was put in place long before Southwest was any sort of competitive factor in the airline industry. If we want fair competition in the open market, they should both operate from DFW.
 

Actually, the Wright Amendment was put in place precisely because of American Airlines feeling threatened by Southwest... the incident is described very well in the authoritative airline industry history book, Hard Landing.

Airlines (including American!) compete from different airports all the time. Check out Chicago O'hare, where they compete against Southwest at Chicago Midway; Miami Int'l, where they compete against Southwest at Fort Lauderdale, Continental in Houston Intercontinental competing against Southwest at Houston Hobby... the list goes on and on.

Most people consider DFW to be a vastly superior airport, so Southwest would still be handicapped, even with the Wright Amendment repealed.