Southwest Airlines continues its legal battle with the City of San Antonio over gate allocations, arguing the city unfairly favored other airlines.
SAN ANTONIO — The saga between Southwest Airlines and the City of San Antonio continued in federal court Tuesday.
Southwest continued to claim that San Antonio’s gate criteria wrongfully favored other airlines. The city is calling for the dismissal.
Southwest Airlines is seeking a summary judgment to avoid trial. Meanwhile, the judge has to decide whether to approve the city’s motion to dismiss the case altogether.
“We’re not trying to dictate to airlines what they charge customers – where they’re going to fly – or what services they need to provide,” City of San Antonio attorney Andy Segovia said. “What we said today is the decisions we made were to get to what best serves the San Antonio community.”
Southwest Airlines disagreed with statements like these by city attorneys in federal court today.
The airline argues that during San Antonio’s gate allocation, the city tried to control how Southwest ran its business.
Which is not allowed under federal law.
The airline argues the airport played favorites when it came to gate allocation, giving more to airlines like Delta.
Adding the city rewarded airlines that committed to building luxury lounges in the new terminal, which unfairly penalized Southwest Airlines.
Lawyers for the airline told a federal judge today that the city misled the company.
They continue to claim they were not notified of the gate placement change.
It wasn’t until June 20 that they claimed they were told Southwest would share terminal A instead of being in terminal C, allowing the airline to grow as projected.
Southwest council also alleged the city changed the facts of gate placement from the original agreement, to which city attorneys said:
“We disagree and again we want to end up with an airport that best serves the San Antonio community – that’s our main objective,” Segovia said.
City attorneys told KENS 5 the judge’s decision could take months. He could rule in favor of or against either motion…or make separate decisions for both.
The city says it will continue with construction on the new terminal as projected.