Terry Maxon/DMN
Southwest Airlines says it is subleasing United Airlines' Gates 15 and 17 at Dallas Love Field. The photo shows the gate areas last fall in advance of the Oct. 13 elimination of the Wright amendment.
Southwest Airlines said Friday it has subleased two Dallas Love Field gates from United Airlines, giving the Dallas carrier 18 of the 20 gates at the airport’s one terminal.
Southwest said it will use the gates to start Dallas flights to nine cities in April, naming Memphis, Milwaukee and Seattle as among the cities to get nonstop service out of Dallas. It’ll also add flights to cities already served out of Love Field, the airline said.
Southwest said the U.S. Department of Justice has “reviewed and cleared” the transaction, and the city of Dallas “also has approved the sublease.”
United will continue using the gates until March 16. It intends to leave Love Field and serve area passengers through its Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport gates.
The announcement comes as major competitor Delta Air Lines Inc. has been fighting to get a permanent foothold at the airport. Delta operates five daily departures to Atlanta from Love Field, using temporary space at a Southwest gate.
Last spring, Southwest, which had rights to 16 of the 20 gates, and Delta lobbied hard to get two gates that American Airlines had to give up as part of an antitrust settlement with the Justice Department.
However, DOJ officials told the city that Justice would accept only Virgin America as the winner of the gates as a way to increase competition at the airport. Virgin now operates 13 daily departures out of Dallas Love, with plans to add three flights in April.
United has been using its two gates to offer seven round trips a day to Houston operating by regional partners using small jets. Southwest will use 143-seat or 175-seat Boeing 737s.
United spokesman Luke Punzenberger confirmed the transaction with Southwest.
“This change will allow us to focus on our strengths in the region – including our large Houston hub – and continue to serve our customers through DFW,” Punzenberger said.
Delta spokesman Trebor Banstetter indicated the sublease won’t affect Delta’s schedule in Dallas.
“We continue to operate our nonstop service to Atlanta from Love Field,” Banstetter said. “We are working with the airport and all the parties involved to ensure that we’ll be able to operate that service permanently.”
Southwest has boosted its service significantly out of the Dallas airport since a federal law known as the Wright amendment expired Oct. 13. Its end allowed Southwest and other carriers to operate nonstop flights to any U.S. destination. Before that, they were limited to Texas and a handful of other nearby states.
Southwest, which had been operating 118 flights inside the Wright amendment borders before Oct. 13, now operates 153 departures, including 53 flights to 17 cities beyond the restricted area.
Without many details, Southwest said that in April it would “offer daily nonstop flights to nine new cities from Dallas, including Memphis, Milwaukee and Seattle, and will increase the number of nonstop flights to recently introduced destinations added” after the end of the Wright amendment.
Asked Jan. 20 if the carrier intended to boost flights at Love Field, Southwest chairman and CEO Kelly said: “That’s a great question.”
“We’re at the point where we need more than 16 gates. We do have a use agreement with United that allows us access to a 17th gate to support this level of flight activity. Hopefully, we can add some more flights, but I’m not willing to commit to that yet,” he said.
Southwest would “love to be able to have more capacity at the airport obviously within the 20 gates. So we’re working on that,” Kelly said.
Source: southwest - Google News http://ift.tt/1yXEtWr
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