[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 17, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3407-H3408]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                AIRPORT COMPETITION IN DALLAS-FORT WORTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Marchant) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MARCHANT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of a law 
which has fostered spectacular growth and vitality in my district and 
throughout all of north Texas. That law, which has become known as the 
Wright amendment, was passed in 1979 to settle for all time a 
controversy on how best to achieve robust competitive airline 
competition in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
  It has worked and continues to work beyond all expectations, but the 
benefits it has brought can easily be undone. Given all of the turmoil 
in the airline industry and the limited time for Congress to get 
important business done, any serious effort to change the current law 
would be a misuse of our time and resources.
  Since the issue has been in the news lately and Members have been 
approached with very simplistic answers on the surface, compelling 
arguments about the Wright amendment, I want to put some facts into the 
Record.
  In the late 1960s, the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, at the 
urgings of the Civil Aeronautics Board, agreed to end the fragmentation 
of air service in the region and invest in a single regional airport 
that could serve all of the people in the area. At the time, everyone 
knew a new airport would not work unless there was an absolute 
commitment by all parties to consolidate all the service from the 
various local airports in the area into the new facility, which became 
known as the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
  The two communities and all carriers offering interstate service from 
the existing airports agreed on this course of action. However, one 
carrier that at that time offered only interstate service from Dallas' 
downtown airport, Love Field, refused to do so.
  This led to a long and protracted and bitter legal battle between the 
communities and this carrier, which ultimately resulted in a carefully 
negotiated compromise. This compromise encompassed into Federal law to 
preserve it was exactly constructed to reflect the intent of the 
communities as well as the desires of the interstate carrier.
  Reluctantly, the civic parties agreed to allow the one carrier that 
had refused to move to the DFW Airport to operate out of Love Field to 
and from points within Texas or to its four contiguous States. That 
carrier agreed to the Wright amendment as a way to settle the issue for 
all time.
  Last week, the highly respected global aviation consulting firm, 
Simat, Helliesen & Eichner, released an omnibus report which predicts 
devastating consequences to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport if the Wright 
amendment were to be repealed. I will submit the report for the Record; 
but it predicts if the Wright amendment is repealed, DFW could lose 204 
flights a day, 21 million passengers annually, and slash DFW passenger 
traffic back to levels seen 20 years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, health in the airline industry is dependent on healthy 
competition between airlines. In contrast, competition between very 
closely located airports can be destructive. The communities of Dallas 
and Fort Worth understood this when they agreed to end, or restrict, 
commercial air traffic to their local airports. DFW was built to 
accommodate any and all carriers, and over the years it has attracted 
both network and low-cost carriers.
  Just as importantly, by limiting traffic at the neighboring airports, 
DFW was able to compete among airports and now is the fifth largest 
airport. Think of it this way. Almost everyone would agree it would 
improve competition to have 30 airlines competing against each other, 
but no one would suggest it would be healthy to have 30 airports 
competing against each other. Just like two major shopping centers will 
die if located next door to each other, two airports located only 12 
miles apart, as are in Dallas, Love Field and DFW will provide two 
weaker airports.
  Let us be perfectly clear. Restriction at Meachem and Love Fields 
were not put in place to give DFW a jump start. No one said, We will 
invest billions of dollars in a huge international airport and domestic 
hub airport until it is successful and then we will undercut the very 
source of its success by reopening the airports that we closed to make 
it so. That does not make good business sense.
  Mr. Speaker, DFW is what it is today because it is the only airport 
in the metroplex that passengers can use to fly anywhere in the world. 
Moreover, it has not achieved the success it has by being 
anticompetitive. On the contrary, it has always welcomed all comers. 
DFW currently has gates available and is seeking new airlines.
  Love Field was never meant to be a competitor to DFW. In fact, DFW 
would probably have never been built and the tens of thousands of jobs 
and the billions of dollars of economic stimulus it has given Dallas-
Fort Worth would never have been realized

[[Page H3408]]

if Love Field had remained an unrestricted airport. The best proof of 
that statement is evidenced by the 21 empty gates currently vacant at 
DFW. Despite any attractive incentives, DFW has been unable to attract 
new, low-cost tenants because of the discussion of repealing the Wright 
amendment.

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