United and Continental continue to push out new routes on a regular basis as the two airlines find opportunities that may not have existed before. These are all either new or restarted hub routes, and some are more interesting than others. In this last round of announcements, there was one that stuck out immediately for me: Denver to Dallas/Love Field.

Southwest fliers and Dallas old-timers know Love Field well. It was the main airport for Dallas until the monstrous DFW opened in 1974. At the time, the plan was to shift everyone over to DFW, but the airport wasn’t actually shut down. Because of that, the little startup known as Southwest decided to stick around to give itself a competitive advantage for Dallas fliers. Love is closer to the city of Dallas itself. At the time, Southwest was just a little guy so the Wright Amendment, which limited flights from Love only to surrounding states on aircraft larger than 56 seats, wasn’t a problem. But over the years, it became a bigger issue as Southwest went national.

The Wright Amendment has been expanded over the years to include some other nearby states, most recently Missouri, but Southwest wasn’t settling for these little carve-outs and went on the offensive. Southwest fought to eliminate the Wright Amendment while American and others fought to keep it in place. In the end, it was agreed to kill the Wright Amendment but it won’t really disappear until 2014. There will, however, remain a cap on the number of gates at the airport as part of the compromise.

One common misconception about the Wright Amendment, however, is that it impacts all commercial flights. That’s not the case. If you had 56 seats or fewer on an airplane, you could fly anywhere in the US. Legend Airlines decided to give this a try at the turn of the century with some airplanes in executive configurations. It was an interesting idea, but American dropped a nuclear bomb on them by fighting them in court and then eventually adding their own executive flights on the same routes. Both operations were disastrous money-losers but Legend went under and American just went back to normal, another potential competitive threat destroyed.

But these days, there are plenty of 50 seat jets around. While you probably don’t want to sit on those cramped sardine cans for very long, if they’re the only option out there, there could be some worthwhile routes. Southwest, of course, doesn’t operate airplanes that small, so going into Love with an airplane with 56 seats or less could result in a real opportunity. With that in mind, you’re probably wondering what took United so long to fly there from Denver at all, right?

Well, Denver to Dallas is an hour and a half flight and that’s a long time to sit on an Embraer 145 (though yes, I’ve done it and survived). While Southwest can’t fly the route nonstop, it does have single stop flights with no change. Right now, I see five of those per day and they only add about 40 minutes to the scheduled flight time because of Southwest’s quick turns. Meanwhile, you can fly United six times a day mostly on mainline airplanes to DFW. So it might be tough for United to really make this work considering all the external factors. But two things have changed with the merger that I’m guessing have led to this move.

First, Continental already flies to Love from Houston. Other than Delta’s three daily flights to Memphis, Continental has the only non-Southwest service out of Love with its seven daily on ExpressJet down to Intercontinental. So Continental has the gates and the staff set up in the airport already. That significantly decreases the cost of adding new flights there, because there are no additional infrastructure costs. United will even be using the same ERJ-145 aircraft that Continental has in there flown by the same regional airline, ExpressJet. So it’s a very simple addition and might even help with better aircraft utilization.

That alone should be plenty of reason to give this a shot. There’s not much to lose by throwing a couple of regional jets a day into a market where you already have a presence on both ends, but I think there probably is something more to it than just that. I think this is also the beginning of Continental’s more aggressive culture coming in. Continental will take chances on routes whereas United is traditionally much more conservative. After all, this route isn’t a slam dunk. Putting only two flights in a market that’s a business route may not be enough, but Continental’s mindset is that it’s worth trying. I couldn’t agree more.

[Original photo via Flickr user Cordey?]

The whole point of PR is to try to spin an issue in your favor, but sometimes the spin is so strong, you feel like you’re riding the teacups at Disneyland. Yesterday, American announced it was pulling out of Dallas/Love Field with a release entitled . . . “AA Signs New Lease at Love Field.” Huh?

Technically, American has signed a new extended lease with Dallas/Love Field that commits the airline to Love until 2028. BUT, beginning June 11, the airline will suspend service until the terminal work is done. When will that happen? 2013, as of now. So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that a four year suspension of service is actually pulling out of a market.

Why would they bother to renew a lease on the terminal if they clearly don’t want to be there for the next four years? Well it all goes back to the whole Love Field fight. When DFW opened, traffic restrictions were put in place at Love Field (by the Wright Amendment) to force airlines to move to DFW. Southwest refused to move, and the battle was born.

Southwest really became aggressive at trying to end the restrictions recently, and American tried to play the “doom” card. American said it would have to move a bunch of flights to Love, split its hub up, and the whole area would suffer just so it could compete with Southwest.

Once Love was opened up slightly, American immediately jumped into the airport with flights to show that the doom and gloom was coming. Well those flights failed, and they ended up consolidating around a single route – Love to Chicago/O’Hare. Now that route is going away.

But as part of the compromise, Love was restricted to a certain number of gates (20), and American got some of those gates. So what would happen if they gave them up? Well Southwest would be able to grow into those gates. Hmm, they can’t have that. So it appears they’ve committed to the gates under the assumption that they’ll need to squat on them in the future.

If I were Southwest, I’d be mounting a challenge here to see if I could get those gates, but of course when I asked them, they didn’t have any official challenge to speak about. They did, however, say that with more of the current terminal being empty right now with American’s departure, it might allow them to accelerate the completion of the new terminal because it gives them more room to maneuver.

You hear that American? That may make you come back to the airport in only 3 years. Think you can handle it?

For those who live in the city of Dallas, today was a good day. It marked the first day you could buy a ticket for flights from Dallas/Love Field to 28 new destinations nationwide on Southwest.

For a rundown on the Wright Amendment, go here. Warning: That site is sponsored by Southwest, so it is likely biased, but it at least gets the history correct for educational purposes.

In short, when DFW opened, airlines were prohibited from flying planes and even selling tickets on connecting flights between Dallas/Love Field and most states except for the ones surrounding (and including) Texas. Sure there were a few exceptions – Missouri recently joined the party – but for the most part, the law held for almost 30 years.

There are really two main players in this fight. Southwest is in one corner begging to get rid of the restrictions so they can start flying anywhere from Love. In the other corner is American, saying it will be bad for the consumer in all kinds of ways. Read here to see their arguments.

Fortunately, they came to an agreement that allows connecting flights to be sold immediately from Love with nonstop flights to be allowed in 2014 (yes, it’s strangely distant). That’s why I say this is just the beginning of the end – it’ll take 8 years for it to really disappear.

But let’s get to the interesting stuff. Southwest said that repealing the law would lower fares in the area while American disagreed. President Bush signed the law on October 13 and Southwest quickly announced that you would be able to buy connecting flights to twenty five cities for travel beginning today, October 19. Let’s take a look at a few of those markets to see what happened to fares.

Using FareCompare, you can find excellent historical information for airfare, so let’s dig in. The following is a complete list of American’s fares last week vs. this week in markets that Southwest announced they would start selling connections. As you can see, fares came down dramatically in many markets and at least minimally in almost every market (the last three are markets where Southwest codeshares with ATA so it is less likely that American would match).

• Looks like the Wright Amendment deal has cleared Congress and is now on the way to the President for signing. PlaneBuzz and State of the Airlines had pieces on this today. This means that in eight very long years, the distance restrictions for flights from Dallas/Love Field will be lifted. At least as soon as this takes effect, airlines can begin selling connecting flights from Love to anywhere they want. That should help Southwest considerably.
• Upgrade: Travel Better points out a very helpful mileage earning offer today. Looks like US Airways will allow all points to be elite qualifying through the end of the year. This means that any points you earn at hotels, car rentals, even flower deliveries will count toward elite status. You need 25,000 miles to qualify for the lowest level. The good news is that my current plan has me 500 miles short, so this will be nice. The bad news is that it means a lot more elite members and the benefits will be diluted. They also point out something that I found in my email inbox today. United is giving double elite qualifying miles through the end of the year if you pay $499. Yikes. That’s pricey, but I guess if you need it, it’s worth it.
• Many of you have heard about the horrific crash in Brazil between a corporate jet and a Gol 737-800 on a scheduled flight. Though the corporate jet was able to land, the Gol flight crashed and all 155 people on board perished. It’s extremely sad when something like this happens, and it’s even more difficult to swallow when it’s something that seems so preventable. The planes were cruising at 36,000 ft and they both should have had a traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) installed. It will be very interesting to hear what actually happened here.

I’ll try to post a couple times when I can this week, but I may be too busy. Talk to you all again soon.