City of Dallas gives OK for Virgin America to get two Love Field gates

[eolesen]

City of Dallas gives OK for Virgin America to get two Love Field gates

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/05/city-of-dallas-gives-ok-for-virgin-america-to-get-two-love-field-gates.html/
 

Virgin America will provide a performance guaranty in the form of a $4 million irrevocable letter of credit to American to ensure the lease obligations, according to a memo sent from Gonzalez to the Dallas City Council members.

The city also incorporated Virgins publicly stated intentions into a compliance agreement, Gonzalez said. The agreement includes:

* Obligates Virgin to comply to standards included in the citys noise abatement program.

* Clarifies and expands how unused gate space might be made accessible to other airlines.

* Protects the city from possible legal expense through an indemnification clause.

I applaud Mr. Gonzalez for his thorough approach to making this important decision, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said today in a statement. I support his approval of the sublease between American Airlines and Virgin America because it is best for the citizens of Dallas.

 

[AdAstraPerAspera]

E, I know this is purely hypothetical, but I am intrigued at what could have been... if AA hadn't been forced to give up the gates at DAL, what do you think they would have done with them? I'm sure network planning had ideas developed, and it just kills me to think I'll probably never know what they were

 

[eolesen]

Day-tripper markets which are somewhat price insensitive.

My gut is they would have added ORD, LGA, DCA, and LAX, maybe BOS, all as A319's, and a skeleton schedule on Saturday afternoons & Sunday mornings.

At the end of the day, for everyone with a presence at both airports, its a spoke operating in the shadow of a larger station. There's no need to chase price sensitive traffic for AA out of two airports if they don't need to.

That's one of the reasons I still find DL's schedule somewhat ridiculous. They are going to trip over a stack of dollar bills in operating expenses just to pick up a random quarter, and at the end of the day, I suspect they're just going to cannibalize their own traffic from DFW.

 

[FWAAA]

My guess was very similar to eolesen's guess:   22-24 daily departures to the five cities mentioned by E plus SFO.   3-4 daily flights to each of the six   A319s or E190s or maybe some E175s.   No way would any AA-loyal elite fly WN to those six business-heavy destinations when they could fly AA from DAL with MCE and/or upgrade possibility.   WN is great for one or two hour flights, but the new Devolve seating plus the extra row that's been added make for an uncomfortable 3-4 hour sit, like SFO, LAX, BOS and LGA.   The noise curfew runs 11 pm to 6 am, so 17 hours of flight activity.