Thread: 40+% Growth at DAL After Wright Amendment? Possible..

On Saturday it was quoted by Dallas aviation director Mark Duebner, who projected that Dallas Love Field will have more than 6 million passengers boarding flights there annually after the Wright amendment goes away in October. Interesting numbers;

The SWA schedule as of late 2014 shows 146 departures a day.

Most of its airplanes have 143 seats, although there are a shrinking number of Southwest airplanes with 117 or 122 seats and a growing number with 175 seats. But let’s assume 143 seats.

Let’s also assume that it will fill 80 percent of its seats. It averaged 80.1 percent for all of 2013 and is averaging 80.7 percent through the first five months of 2014. So 80 percent seems reasonable.

If you multiple 143 (seats) X 80% (load factor) X 146 (flights) X 365 (days in the year), it comes out to 6,096,376. Its weekend schedule tends to be less aggressive than the weekdays, so we’ll lose some flights and passengers. But that’s a good indicator of what Southwest might enplane.

Then we have Virgin America, which plans 18 flights a day. Its load factor in 2013 averaged 80.2 percent, so we’ll say 80 percent. It flies 149-seat, 146-seat and 119-seat aircraft. Let’s take the average, 138 seats. So 138 (seats) X 80% (load factor) X 18 (flights) X 365 (days in the year) equals 725,328.

We don’t know UA plans for Dallas Love Field. It has two gates. Let’s assume conservatively that it will have the same number of passengers annually as in 2013 when it enplaned 50,567 passengers. Delta and SkyWest combined enplaned 90,884 passengers.

If you add the Southwest, Virgin America, United, Delta and SkyWest numbers together, it comes out to just about 6.96 million enplanements a year. We can cut that back quite a bit and still reach 6 million.

Aviation consultant Michael Boyd has predicted that Love Field would take 3 to 4 percent of DFW’s traffic. Based on DFW’s 2013 total of about 60 million passengers, that would mean 1.8 million to 2.4 million more at Love Field. Love Field had 4,245,996 enplanements in 2013. Add 1.8 million to 2.4 million to Love’s 4.25 million, and we’re over 6 million — 6.05M to 6.65M.

But in fact, traffic may be so horrendous around Love Field and the parking lots so crowded that many potential Love Field customers will use DFW Airport for less hassle. Boyd also dismissed the belief that Love Field was a convenient and more accessible airport, which is why he put its impact on DFW Airport at only 3 to 4 percent of DFW’s traffic. American’s most loyal AAdvantage members will keep going to DFW to get their miles. Lots of possible reasons that Love Field won’t get to 6 million. In that case, you’ll see Southwest cut its schedule at Love Field, and other carriers will shrink or disappear there.