=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/n/a/2005/12/13/financial/= f085300S02.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, December 13, 2005 (AP) Southwest, American in Fresh Battle By DAVID KOENIG, AP Business Writer (12-13) 08:53 PST DALLAS (AP) -- The first Southwest Airlines Co. flight from Dallas to Missouri left Love Field on Tuesday morning, opening a new front in the battle between the low-cost carrier and American Airlines, the nation's largest airline. The 8:10 a.m. flight to St. Louis was followed 40 minutes later by a flight to Kansas City, marking Southwest's first new nonstop service from Love Field in more than 20 years, according to spokeswoman Brandy King. American, a unit of AMR Corp., planned to announce Tuesday that it would begin flights from Love Field on March 2 to St. Louis, Kansas City, Austin and San Antonio. American officials said shifting flights to the downtown facility would weaken Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport but that they were forced to respond to Southwest's expansion. Southwest moved quickly to expand at Love Field just two weeks after President George W. Bush signed a transportation spending law that included a provision allowing the Missouri flights. A 1979 federal law that was changed in 1997 limited flights to and from Love Field to Texas and seven nearby states. The only way around the law is to operate planes with 56 or fewer seats.= A start-up, Legend Airlines, tried that strategy in 2000 and soon went out of business. Southwest has been lobbying for more than a year to repeal the Love Field restrictions and got its first victory when Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., included the Missouri provision in the spending bill. The first flights to Missouri were not full — King conceded that "passenger loads on those first flights were light — but the airline didn't announce passenger counts. "We only had a week and a half to advertise and sell those flights," King said. Southwest scheduled four daily nonstops to St. Louis and four more to Kansas City, bringing its departures from Love Field to 120. The Dallas-based airline had planned a celebration of the new service, b= ut it canceled those plans after last week's accident in Chicago, in which a Southwest jet skidded off a snowy runway and struck cars, killing a 6-year-old boy in one of the vehicles. It was the first accident-related death in Southwest's 35-year history. Instead of a pep rally, Southwest employees handed out souvenir mints to passengers on the first Missouri-bound flights. ---------------------------= ------------------------------------------- Copyright 2005 AP