No, Southwest is not moving to Phoenix. You might have heard in the news that Southwest is moving its headquarters. This is a perfect example of 1) a company’s brilliantly using the media to advance its political gains, 2) the media’s tendency to turn a nonevent into news, and 3) people’s tendency to jump to conclusions. Southwest’s PR department is a master of keeping Southwest in the news. As part of the Wright fight, our CEO mentioned last year that it didn’t make sense to have HDQ at Love Field with Wright in place. Phoenix, a wisely pro-business city, heard that and wants to entice us to move HDQ there. Out of courtesy, we are hearing them out. No big deal. We get hundreds of pitches on all kinds of subjects each year – requests for new service, sales pitches on various products, sales pitches on new aircraft types, and so on. We pass on most of them, just like we will on this one. I’m sure Southwest made sure the media found out we had agreed to hear the Phoenix proposal, which is an instant news maker. The story returns the focus to the Wright Amendment, to Southwest’s importance as an employer and taxpayer here, and to Dallas’s poor support of one of its star employers. Unfortunately, upon hearing the story that Phoenix is pitching a move, many people heard it as “Southwest is moving to Phoenix,” and our moms got worried. =) The only way we would consider moving, in my humble opinion, is if the Wright Amendment somehow became a lost cause. I don’t see that happening. Instead, I see our local mayors and congressional leaders finally realizing that Wright will fall one way or another, and that they have a choice to make: let the rest of Congress decide how it falls, or work out a compromise together. They are working on a compromise. Thanks to Senator Hutchison for her efforts to get the ball rolling.

And in other news, American has resumed service from Love Field to Kansas City, St. Louis, Austin, and San Antonio. A credit analyst recently estimated that American would lose around $115 million annually by serving Love Field. That’s quite an expensive way to prove a point. I give them 18 months before they pull out again.