Bullying Big D

Nobody likes a bully. Perhaps someone should tell that to the president of Southwest Airlines, Coleen Barrett. The Dallas Morning News reports that Ms. Barrett is threatening to move the airline's corporate headquarters from Dallas if the Wright Amendment is not repealed. Southwest employs 5,000 people in Big D and pays roughly $15,000,000.00 million in taxes a year. If the efforts to remove the Wright Amendment restrictions fail, "there could be a time, if we continue to have a modicum of success, that it would be a bit odd for us to have our headquarters at one of the smallest posts in our system," Ms. Barrett said.

For almost a year, Southwest has been campaigning to try and get congress to repeal the Wright Amendment, which restricts most commercial service at Love Field to Texas and nearby states. Far enough, petitioning our government is a cherished right we hold. But no one has a right to extortion, and that is exactly what this is. There was a time when Southwest was a tiny little David, in a land populated by airline Goliaths. Who could resist rooting for the little upstart airline with the cocky attitude as they stuck it to their huge competitors? Now days, Southwest is one of the country's biggest airlines and the most profitable. Today Southwest is sticking it to Dallas.