Southwest Airlines gutted the Love Field Master Plan when it inaugurated flights today to St. Louis and Kansas City, the Love Field Citizens Action Committee has charged.

According to the committee, Southwest signed a consensus statement on March 29, 2001, endorsing a proposed new Master Plan for the airport that assumed the Wright amendment would remain intact.

The committee is a coalition of citizens and neighborhood groups established in 1981 to address the environmental impact of Love Field on nearby residential areas.

In a written statement, the committee said that the city's Master Plan will become meaningless “as a result of SWA’s intent to strengthen its stranglehold monopoly at Love Field by transforming the inner city secondary airport into a national airport and preventing other low cost carriers from effectively competing at DFW International Airport.”

The statement, released by committee cochairs Pat White and Rudy Longoria, said that Southwest’s action will result in long haul service and larger and louder planes flying out of Love Field. It also stated:

“Instead of the Master Plan’s noise, air pollution and ground traffic congestion projections, there will be new ones more onerous to the neighborhoods…Instead of a noncompetitive relationship with DFW International Airport, there will be direct competition.”

The Master Plan was the result of a broad based group of neighborhood and business leaders working with airport staff and aviation representatives.  

Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Linda Rutherford told the Dallas Business Journal that the Love Field Master Plan never regulated where planes had to fly but regulated the number of gate operations, and the airlines has no intention of violating that number. In fact, short haul flights from Love Field have decreased from about 140 to 114 since Sept. 11, 2001.

She also said that Southwest flies the quietest jet at Love Field, and that noise at the airport has actually decreased over time. As far as competing directly with DFW Airport, she said that studies in other cities point to consumer benefits where there is fare and airport competition.

Southwest began the flights to St. Louis and Kansas City after Congress recently exempted Missouri from Wright Amendment restrictions in a transportation appropriations bill that was signed by President Bush.

As a result of Southwest’s expanded flights, American Airlines also has begun preparations to move some of its Missouri flights from DFW to Love and has lowered prices on flights from DFW to St. Louis and Kansas City.

However, the Love Field Citizens Action Committee said that the City of Dallas must now determine how to proceed “in the absence of a Master Plan,” as the neighborhoods will have no protection.

Southwest has been campaigning for several months for the repeal of the Wright Amendment, which was passed in 1979 and limited the use of Love Field to short haul flights to surrounding states.

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