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Delta bumped from Love Field in Dallas gate battle

Delta Air Lines has been given two weeks to halt its flights at Dallas Love Field

October 02, 2014

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​Delta Air Lines has been given two weeks to halt its flights at Dallas Love Field, forcing the airline to scramble to accommodate its customers scheduled to fly out of the airport after Oct. 13.

Delta said it was "disappointed" at the order, which Dallas city officials say they issued only reluctantly to the Atlanta-based carrier, according to The Dallas Morning News.

The development comes amid intensifying competition for space at Dallas Love, fallout from both an American Airlines agreement with the Justice Department and from the upcoming phase-out of the Wright Amendment that had restricted flights at the airport.

Most immediately for Delta, it must find a way to accommodate customers that had been booked on its flights for Love Field. The Morning News reports the City of Dallas on Monday (Sept. 29) told Delta that it would have to halt service at the airport by Oct. 13, effectively giving the carrier two weeks to get out. Delta also flies from Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) — by far the region's busiest airport — and it seemed likely that it would try to accommodate affected passengers on its flights from that airport.

Now to the back story that led up to the current Love Field saga.

Delta had flown from Dallas Love Field since 2008, using gate space that it had leased from American Airlines. However, American agreed last year to give up its gate space at Love Field — as well as assets at other airports — as part of a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that paved the way for it to merge with US Airways.

But in enforcing the deal, Justice was insistent that AA's Love Field gates must go to a low-cost carrier. And it was later revealed that Justice gave American a "list" of acceptable suitors for its Love Field gates. That list contained just one carrier: Virgin America.

Delta and Southwest also waged pubic campaigns for access to the gates, but it was not enough to overcome what appeared to be the only acceptable choice singled out by Justice regulators.

Getting to the second part of the back story: Gate space at Love Field is in such high demand partially because its capacity was capped in 2006 in a compromise on the so-called Wright Amendment, enacted in 1979 and modified several times since.

The Wright Amendment — itself the end result of a compromise that let Love Field remain in operation after DFW opened in 1974 — had restricted most airline flights from Love Field to destinations in Texas and a handful of nearby states.

Southwest, which is headquartered near Love Field, eventually pushed to loosen those restrictions as the once-upstart low-cost carrier grew into one of the USA's biggest airlines. Finally, a deal was struck in 2006 that called for a seven-year phase-out of the restrictions, but only if Love Field would be capped at 20 gates.

All sides agreed, paving the way for Wright's restrictions to end, which will finally come later this month, on Oct. 13. But it also meant that Love is now capped at 20 gates, something that's helped create the scramble currently underway.

Even after Justice had acted against its interests, Delta had hoped to keep flying from Love Field by leasing under-utilized gates from United.

United has two gates at Love Field, but on Tuesday the Morning News revealedSouthwest struck a deal with United to use one of its two gates. Southwest already controls 16 of Love Field's 20 gates, meaning the deal with United gives it access to 85% of the gate space at the access-restricted airport.

As part of the deal, United also promised the city of Dallas that it would begin flying more flights from its gates, which some city officials seemed to suggest United may be holding on to only to keep rivals out.

"United has done a historically poor job of utilizing its gates," Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston says to the Morning News. "United has provided the city with assurances the city has accepted that it will fully utilize the gates. We need to make sure we're holding United to its assurances."

United currently offers six flights a day from Love Field to its hub at Houston Bush Intercontinental, but promised Dallas to increase that schedule from the city-owned Love to 12 daily flights by mid-January.

And if United doesn't follow through?

"If this was a thinly veiled tactic just to keep Delta from using the gates, that will become apparent," Kingston tells the Morning News. "At some point, we knew demand would outstrip supply with only 20 gates. It's a hard situation for us to be in. We like competition."

As for Delta, not everyone was entirely regarding the carrier's current plight at Love Field.

Mark Duebner, Dallas' director of aviation, tells the Morning News Delta knew earlier this year that it would lose its lease for American's Love Field gates this month.

"They continued to sell tickets without having a place to operate out of," Duebner adds to the newspaper.

Delta currently flies from Love Field to Atlanta. Normally, such a route would be prohibited by Wright, but Delta has exploited a loophole that exempts aircraft seating fewer than 56 seats from the amendment's distance restriction. Delta uses 50-seat regional jets on that route.

As for Southwest, it plans to start its own flights between Love Field and Atlanta on Nov. 2, one of a new series of routes Southwest will launch as the Wright restrictions fall away.

Still, Delta says it will continue to look for a "solution" that will allow it to operate from both Love and DFW.