This fall we will see big changes at Dallas Love Field.
On Oct. 13, the Wright Amendment restrictions on nonstop flights between Love Field and cities in the continental U.S. will end. The party is already getting started.
Last week Virgin America offered a three-day fare sale out of Love Field, with tickets as low as $79 each way, for flights to Los Angeles, New York LaGuardia, San Francisco and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
In March, we thought the party would be twofold, with Southwest launching sales and other airlines matching, but Virgin America came in first with these deals. It has been a long time since we’ve seen an airline the quality of Virgin America offering $79 one-way fares.
Virgin America launched the sale after announcing that it had reached an agreement with American to take over two gates that American has to give up as part of its merger with US Airways. The Department of Justice has approved the transfer to Virgin America, and now we are awaiting word from the city of Dallas, so it’s not a done deal yet.
Virgin America plans to offer three flights a day between Dallas and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and four to New York LaGuardia. The airline is hoping to get approved for another gate in Chicago in the next few weeks. If it wins a gate, it is likely to add Dallas-Chicago service, but that wouldn’t start until sometime in 2015.
One airline we’ve been overlooking is United.
United has been flying smaller airplanes, offering six daily flights to Houston from its two gates at Love, but once the Wright Amendment restrictions end, United may change its strategy.
Since Virgin America is planning to offer double the number of flights that United currently offers, we could see United double its nonstop routes since the airline has the same number of gates. The airline may offer flights to hubs like Newark, Denver and Chicago, which could lead to more competition. I’m sure United has something on the drawing board that will take it past just serving Houston’s Bush Intercontinental.
Local airport codes
We know to go to Southwest.com to find Southwest fares, but one issue that Virgin America must handle is making sure that consumers know to enter airport code DAL when looking for flights into and out of Love Field. Unlike Southwest, Virgin is on regular booking sites, but many people don’t understand that if you enter DFW as your airport, you’ll only get fares for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport flights.
In other cities with multiple airports, you can enter the city name when looking for flights and the booking engine will pull up flights to all of the airports. For example, you can use the code NYC for New York and you will see flights to LaGuardia, JFK and Newark. We don’t have an airport code in Dallas that will show both airports, so you have to enter DFW and DAL separately to see the flights and fares.
Watching Southwest fares
Airlines like to start selling seats at least five or six months before starting new nonstop routes. I expect to see Southwest come out with introductory fares in May or June on new nonstop routes out of Love Field for flights starting on Oct. 13.
When you start selling fares on new routes at $79 one-way, what’s the next sale going to be? We could see another $79 sale, but even if it’s $89 or $99 one-way, it’s still an excellent buy. One way to get people to look for Love Field flights is to offer great sale fares. We expect to see fierce airfare sales on new routes offered by Southwest and Virgin America, and I think it will spread to D/FW to be competitive.
While most summer airfares look ugly, the late summer and fall fares are starting to look promising for travel starting Aug. 25 up until Thanksgiving, and that’s good news for consumers.
