Dallas Love Field has been unleashed. Wright Amendment restrictions were officially lifted Monday which means a new era of non-stop flights for Southwest Airlines and a new North Texas home for Virgin America.
Not surprisingly, passengers are excited to spend a little less time in the friendly skies on the way to their final destination.
Though she isn’t a seasoned business traveler Ava Christoffer has a strong preference for non-stop flights.
“I think it’s easier, because if I had to stop, I’d have to wait like an hour,” she says.
Ava is almost 12, and was flying unaccompanied Monday. She and her Dad are both thankful her Southwest Airlines flight to Washington D.C. is a straight shot.
“I like going on non-stop flights better because I know right when I get off my family’s just waiting for me right there, I don’t have to wait by myself or something,” says Ava.
Many of Ava’s fellow travelers are singing the same praise. As of Monday, Love Field offers non-stops to Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, L.A., San Francisco, Orlando, D.C. and Baltimore. Eight more direct routes are coming in the next few weeks.
Sandeep Boppana travels quite a bit for work and says getting from point A to point B is about to get a whole lot easier.
“We don’t have these monster layovers and all these hops. So we’re more than happy with the expiration of the amendment,” he says.
Chaz Edwards is also a business commuter and travels for fun too. He says he’ll be hopping a plane for the coast the first chance he has.
“I’ll be looking forward to going to Florida for sure,” says Edwards. “I love Florida, I always have loved going down there. Nice weather, nice beaches.”
Both North Texans and out-of-towners are equally excited about these changes. Warner and Jennifer Kind live in Bakersfield, California but may move to Dallas. They flew in and out of DFW airport in September and were not impressed.
“It was just very un-organized it seemed like,” Jennifer says. “Yeah, we rented a car and had to get on the rental car shuttle that went, I don’t where we went, five miles down the road or something? And everybody’s getting off at the same place, it was a mess,” says Warner.
Dallas Love Field is still capped at 20 gates, so it won’t get much bigger. But for folks with a plane ticket, the world might feel a little smaller.
