Omission Of Four Words May Spell Doom For Landmark Deal

Four words. That may be all that marks the difference between passage of an unprecedented agreement on the decades-old Wright Amendment compromise in North Texas, and the bill being locked in eternal debate on Capitol Hill.

Proponents of the much-storied compromise that would lift flight restrictions at Love Field in Dallas, TX were dealt a potentially significant setback Wednesday, as the House Judiciary Committee pushed through a version of the proposal that strips away anti-trust protections.

The Dallas Morning News reports the wording in the original agreement -- reached in June between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, TX as well as Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, and DFW airport --  states the compromise complied with transportation "and any competition laws."

Opponents of the agreement have tied the bill up for months, saying those words exempt the measure from future court challenges -- and in turn, would effectively lock out the DFW market from new airlines flying out of Dallas Love Field.

That didn't fly with committee chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner... nor with ranking member Rep. John Conyers, who removed those four words from the original agreement.

Some congressmen who have pushed the bill through on Capitol Hill -- seeking passage of the agreement before a December 31, 2006 deadline -- fear the deletion of those four words may kill the entire bill.

"As a practical matter, it’s the Wright amendment that’s anti-consumer and anti-competition," said Rep. Spencer Bachus to the DMN. "If we adopt this amendment, we will litigate this thing for the next 10 or 15 years."

As Aero-News reported in June, the agreement would allow Southwest to immediately begin through-ticketing on long-haul flights from Love Field... and would completely strip away the ban on nonstop long-haul flights in 2015. In exchange for the deal, the number of gates available to Southwest -- and other airlines -- at Love would be reduced from the current 32, to 20.

It is that reduction -- aimed at keeping a lid on traffic and noise from the increased number of flights allowed from Love -- that opponents say would diminish competition at the inner-city airport... as those gates are already spoken for by Southwest, American and Continental.

Conyers commented that if the agreement is as good for competition as proponents say it is, "then shielding it from any challenges under antitrust laws is unnecessary."

The matter is not dead just yet, however -- as new protective language may still be added to replace the stricken wording. It may prove telling, however, that no such language was added by the House Judiciary Committee.

Despite the setback, Sen. John Cornyn -- who is consponsoring the Senate bill with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison -- put a positive spin on the proceedings -- saying he was "glad there's some movement" on the House side, after months of debate.

"Our goal continues to be to try to work through this rather than get everybody locked down into hardened positions which would delay passage," Mr. Cornyn said.

FMI: www.southwest.com, www.aa.com, http://hutchison.senate.gov/