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Town of San Antonio is asking a decide to place an finish to an ongoing lawsuit with Southwest Airways over gate assignments within the San Antonio Worldwide Airport (SAT).
The airline, in the meantime, is gearing as much as take its struggle to a brand new venue: The Federal Aviation Administration.
San Antonio is within the midst of a $2.5 billion airport redevelopment that features plans for a elaborate new “Terminal C” that might function as much as 17 gates, spacious ready areas and membership lounges and a lushly landscaped, open-air courtyard.
Southwest Airways, which at present dominates the biggest terminal at SAT, says it was promised house within the new amenities however that metropolis leaders reneged on the settlement.
A movement to dismiss filed by the town’s attorneys on Thursday stated that “the entire airport’s main airways” needed placement within the new terminal, and it was “inevitable that a number of airways could be sad with their gate assignments.”
Such disagreements “are precisely why Congress preserved airport proprietors’ rights to handle their airports in accord with native curiosity,” the movement reads.
Although a decide agreed to permit the town to proceed with its deliberate gate assignments, Southwest Airways’ attorneys have been utilizing the authorized discovery course of to pour by means of hundreds of pages of inner metropolis paperwork, together with screenshots of textual content messages, they consider depict dishonest interactions with metropolis leaders.
Town’s movement to dismiss sought to place an finish to the struggle by offering its rationale for the picks.
It additionally famous that by persevering with to demand gates which have already been assigned, the airline hasn’t left the town any avenue to make amends.
“Southwest’s problem is that there’s not all the time a authorized salve for disappointment,” the movement reads.
Southwest Airways spokesman Chris Perry stated San Antonio’s movement got here as no shock, and the airline stays “keen to work with the town to discover a cheap answer to proper its previous wrongs.”
In a nod to the potential lack of authorized treatment, nevertheless, earlier this week Southwest Airways took its complaints to the FAA, which has the ultimate authority over whether or not airport proprietors deal with their air carriers fairly.
The FAA additionally has authority over the federal airport grants anticipated to assist pay for an enormous chunk of San Antonio’s airport redevelopment. President Donald Trump simply appointed a former airline govt to move the company this week.
“San Antonio’s personal paperwork show what we’ve maintained all alongside: Town assigned gates within the new terminal based mostly on a desire for airways with first-class service and membership lounges in violation of federal legislation,” Perry stated in a press release Friday. “The proof additionally reveals defendants misled SWA, taxpayers, and the Metropolis Council to the detriment of our clients, staff, and the Group.”
