http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/03/AR2005060301 461.html
The Wrongs of the Wright Rule By George F. Will Sunday, June 5, 2005; Page B07 <The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, and the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, which opened in 1974, tried unsuccessfully to force Southwest [Airlines] to move its operations from close-in Love Field out to DFW, arguing that the new airport depended on this....House Majority Leader Jim Wright, from Fort Worth, rode to the rescue of the strong -- DFW and Fort Worth-based American Airlines. In 1979 he muscled through Congress a measure designed to stifle the growth of Southwest and punish it for not moving out to DFW -- an expensive move that would have made it sensible for many Southwest customers to drive rather than fly to their destinations. The Wright Amendment restricted interstate service from Love Field to cities in just four states -- Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. In 1997 senators wanting to bring Southwest's low fares to their constituents amended the Wright Amendment to allow flights to Alabama, Kansas and Mississippi. Today, if you want to fly Southwest from Love Field to Los Angeles, you must buy a ticket to Albuquerque, collect your baggage there, buy another ticket, go through security again and board another plane....surely Washington, although difficult to embarrass, is embarrassed enough to repeal the Wright Amendment.> -------- 1. If memory serves me, the original plan at Defence controlled HAL in Bangalore a dozen years ago was to have only short haul flights when the new airport was ready. Something like the Wright Amendment(s). 2. However, nowadays there is no mention of short haul flights at HAL airport when BIAL is coming up in 3 years. Perhaps Defence had a change of heart in the interim. Or the BIAL operator got tough for the sake of its viability. 3. Remember that during this time, CIAL came up in Kochi as a private-public partnership and moved out completely from the Navy airfield that was on an island. There may have been no other option in this case as the island topography did not permit the required expansion to accommodate wide bodied civilian aircraft. The high cost, big delay green field option may have come into being to bypass Defence constraints in Indian cvil aviation. This has become the de facto standard in our airport planning. Wrongly so, in my opinion. 4. In the case of Dabolim/Mopa, the options may be some sort of Wright-type rules for Dabolim and/or Mopa; or an effective joint-use agreement at Dabolim while Mopa evolves gradually into a viable civilian airport. The latter may be the best bet.
