Today we harvest and celebrate the product of the grand compromise that ended the Wright amendment era while ensuring the result is environmentally impact-neutral on the surrounding neighborhoods. Let’s pause and recall the many years of preparing the soil for this final harvest.
The Love Field Citizens Action Committee, founded in 1980, is a nonprofit organization of neighborhoods. Our mission is to enhance the quality of life for the thousands who live in our many neighborhoods by reducing the negative noise and air pollution, traffic congestion and safety risks posed by Love Field.
The committee has been actively involved in these issues for the past 35 years, steadfastly opposing repeal of the Wright amendment and, finally, in 2006, playing a crucial role in finding an impact-neutral solution.
The origins of the repeal solution are in the 2001 Love Field Master Plan. This plan took many months of work by all interested parties: airlines; other airport tenants and users; residents, including our committee and the neighborhoods surrounding Love Field; and local, regional and federal governments. The plan was signed by all parties and unanimously approved by the Dallas City Council. The Wright amendment was assumed to remain in place, with gates capped at 32 and the assumption that most additional traffic would be regional jets. The ink was barely dry when Southwest Airlines announced in November 2004 that it would work to repeal the Wright amendment, thus bringing into question the validity of the Master Plan.
The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Aviation held a hearing on the Wright amendment on Nov. 10, 2005. Representatives of Southwest and American Airlines were among the many who testified. Also among them, at the invitation of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, was our committee — the only party being paid by no one and the only party representing those who live daily with the impact of Love Field. This was a familiar role.
In early 2006, Mayor Laura Miller contacted the committee and asked what it would take for us to support a repeal. Previously, we had agreed to the noise control program in the Master Plan of 2001. We replied that we would support repeal if the noise impact agreed to in 2001 could be legally maintained.
DMJM Aviation, the consultant for the Master Plan, was retained to determine an impact neutral solution. In the Dallas Love Field Impact Analysis Update, the consultant determined that the overall environmental thresholds and noise contours of operating 20 gates under a no-Wright-amendment scenario were the most comparable to the 2001 plan.
The components of the impact-neutral solution were finalized that July in a five-party contract signed by the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, along with Southwest, American and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Included are the specifics that there will permanently be only 20 gates, with no hardstands (parking areas for aircraft and ground vehicles), no split jet bridges and no international flights. President George W. Bush signed the law that ended the Wright amendment in October 2006.
Recently, Southwest Airlines’ Gary Kelly was quoted in The Dallas Morning News as aying Love Field “fits very nicely in the neighborhood with 20 gates.”
Twenty gates is impact-neutral. It allows longer-haul flights without increasing negative environmental impacts. The solution is complex and beautiful in its simplicity, constructed from hard data and protected by federal legislation and the five-party agreement.
Trust but verify. The committee will continue to monitor Love Field to ensure all parties are represented.
Rudy Longoria and Pat White are co-chairs of the Love Field Citizens Action Committee. Reach Pat White at pat.t.white@gmail.com.
