AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, the world’s biggest carrier, may cut or move 23 percent of its flights at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport if Southwest Airlines Co. wins a bid to fly anywhere in the U.S. from rival airport Love Field.
A study by Eclat Consulting Inc. that concludes that Fort Worth, Texas-based American might cut 279 flights and move 90 to Love Field “presents a very plausible scenario,” American senior vice president William Ris said at a news conference in Dallas on Monday.
Southwest is trying to persuade Congress to repeal a 1979 federal law that limits Love Field flights.
Among the airports at risk of losing flights is Colorado Springs, and Vail/Eagle is listed as a market that American could potentially exit.
Dallas-based Southwest, the biggest low-fare carrier, this year began a campaign to end restrictions that limit flights to and from Love Field, its home airport, to Texas and six surrounding states. Southwest has said lifting the restrictions would save $700 million for travelers annually.
“The ramifications of a repeal reach well beyond the Dallas metropolitan area,” said Randy Babbitt, chief executive of Res ton, Va.-based Eclat. “The American transportation system is an integrated network. To change the structure of the network would be somewhat parallel to denying a small city access to the Internet.”
American, which funded the Eclat study, can’t determine what kind of financial impact changing its presence at Dallas/ Fort Worth, its home base, would have, Ris said.
“They made some suggestions about how they suspect we will run our business,” Southwest Airlines spokesman Ed Stewart said, referring to a finding that Southwest would add 90 flights at Love Field. “If we took their advice, we would be out of business. This is just more of the same from American. People are tired of the studies and threats.”
Cuts at the airport would be felt in 95 cities, with effects most pronounced in smaller communities such as Peoria, Ill., according to the conclusions of the Eclat study.
