Love Field Neighbors Fight ‘Unbearable’ Noise as City Council Ponders Lease Agreements

Dallas Love Field is booming with activity, and not everyone is happy about it. 

Enplanements and revenues have increased to near-pre-pandemic levels, Director of Aviation Mark Duebner told the Dallas City Council last week. 

That’s a good thing, right?

Not exactly. 

Residents of Briarwood, Bluffview, Love Field West, Elm Thicket, and even Highland Park say more enplanements — particularly those taking off from the Lemmon Avenue side of the airport rather than the Denton Drive side  — means more noise.

For 70 years, the city-owned airport’s 13R-31L “Denton Runway,”  surrounded mostly by businesses and commercial entities, was the primary runway. The 13L-31R “Lemmon Runway,” which impacts far more neighborhoods and residences, was rarely used. In 2014, for example, there were only 50 flights a week from the Lemmon Runway. Now it averages more than 200 flights a day, meaning residents are hearing nearly 30 times the number of takeoffs and landings.

The Denton Runway closed in early 2021 for well over a year of reconstruction work, during which time all airport traffic was routed through the Lemmon Runway. Now the upgrades are complete, but the air traffic hasn’t evened out between the residential and non-residential sides of the airport, nearby homeowners say. 

Complaints about noise from neighbors have fallen on deaf ears, said Highland Park resident Andy Wallace. 

“The noise has been unbearable through the process of building the new runway along Denton Drive,” Wallace told CandysDirt.com. “Southwest Airlines has benefited from everything happening at Love, and the Lemmon side of town has taken the majority of impacts since the redesign of the terminal, which opened up the avenue to utilize Lemmon Runway to expand flights. The neighborhood is upset since they have told us on every occasion the traffic would return to normal post-runway construction. It has not, and will not unless the public exhibits concern over the new-normal flight traffic.” 

City officials are now tasked with updating lease agreements with various aircraft carriers and planning the best use of space at the city-owned airport six miles north of downtown Dallas. The current agreements expire in 2028.

What’s Love Got to Do With it?

Dallas Love Field has been around since 1917 and was the city’s main airport until 1974. It’s the birthplace, corporate headquarters, and a major operating base of Southwest Airlines. 

The airport is limited to 20 gates, per the Wright Amendment Reform Act and a “Five Party Agreement,” Duebner told the city council. 

Southwest leases 16 gates; American Airlines leases two gates, and United Airlines leases two gates. 

American and United do not operate at Love Field but sublease their gates to Southwest, Delta, and Alaska Airlines. 

While the number of gates is capped, the number of flights is not. 

The airport averages about 1,600 passengers per gate per day, Duebner said. 

Duebner did not address noise in his presentation.

We reached out to Aviation Administration Public Information Officer Lauren Rounds about the noise.

“As you know, DAL is located in a noise-sensitive area of the city near residential neighborhoods, and in order to balance the needs of our partners and neighbors, the City of Dallas has adopted policies that establish a noise-reduction goal to reduce the impact of the airport’s operations on our neighbors,” Rounds said in a statement. “With this in mind, it is important to note that aircraft noise tolerance varies by person and different factors play a role in the level of noise any one individual may experience.”

These factors range from the weather, which can affect how noise travels, to the specific location of an individual’s residence in relation to a flight path, Rounds explained.

Although the Department of Aviation has developed a Voluntary Noise Program for Love Field, ultimately the Federal Aviation Administration regulates virtually all aspects of airport operations, she said. She added that the FAA requires the airport to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The city cannot ban any specific type or size of aircraft from operating at the airport, based on noise levels, and the city cannot establish a curfew without FAA approval. Neighbors are encouraged to monitor the city’s flight-tracking and noise complaint system.

All You Need is Love? 

Dallas Love Field is projected to have 8 million enplanements with a revenue of $141.9 million for Fiscal Year 2022, according to Duebner’s Oct. 19 presentation. That compares with about 8.3 million enplanements and $147.4 million in revenue for FY19. 

The numbers were significantly lower in FY20 and FY21 during the COVID-19 pandemic, hovering around 5 million enplanements and $135 million in revenue.

“Operations are returning to the levels they were previously,” Duebner said. “Our revenues have rebounded. We are entirely dependent on the revenues we generate. Revenue per passenger is very strong. That’s on the back of increased prices, inflationary pressures at the concessions, as well as rising parking rates.”

Southwest transports up to 96 percent of the passengers at Love Field, Duebner said. Under the current use and lease agreements, the contracting airlines have preferential use, meaning no other airline can operate out of gates that are in use. 

“Some of that utilization that we’re getting out of the gates is due to the efficiency with which Southwest operates,” Duebner said. “They clearly know how to get the maximum usage out of a gate.”

As the leases are due to expire in 2028, the city’s Aviation Administration is recommending operational changes, so more residual fees can be recouped from the airlines, Duebner said. 

Additional storage space also is needed, the aviation director added. Design, procurement, installation, and testing is a multi-year process, he said.

“We’re saying within the next 12 months we really need to have serious conversations with the airlines, gauge what interest they have in continuing to operate at Love Field, and bring back a recommendation to the council to execute those use and lease agreements,” he said.

Noisy Neighbors

Duebner reported on several new ventures, including plans for 11th Avenue streetscape enhancements. “That is to connect increasing mobility north to the south end of the airport,” Duebner said. “That will tie in nicely to the recent attention paid to Elm Thicket/Northpark. We’ve got some gateway features to help that neighborhood.”

Meanwhile, Wallace said, no one at the city is talking about the noise. Flights begin around 6 a.m. each day and make it incredibly difficult to have a conference call or even a conversation in the homes surrounding the Lemmon Avenue side of the airport, he added. 

It’s not a situation of “you knew what you were getting into when you bought a house next to an airport,” said Wallace, who moved into his home 11 years ago. 

“We were told since Day One there would be no ‘new noise’ on us,” he said. “Southwest will choose to sit and wait at Lemmon because it now makes sense to do this. They learned this while the [Denton] runway was closed for 20 months. It’s a shame more people weren’t vocal through the years. Now they are all coming out and showing this isn’t fair.” 

Kerri Lacher and her husband built their home in Briarwood 12 years ago.

“We didn’t have any noise pollution even though we are close to Love Field,” she said. “They started construction [on the runway] and the noise would start at 6 a.m. and go to midnight. The flights would be taking off [on the Lemmon side] every five minutes.”

Lacher was told by a city employee that they hoped to eventually have a 50-50 split of usage between the two runways.

“He told me at that time it was 60-40,” she said. “There’s no way.”

The flights are now taking off every 10 to 20 minutes rather than every five minutes, but the noise is still unbearable, Lacher said.

“It’s destroyed the peace I have in my home,” she said. “Now the project is over and we’re stuck with the outcome.”

Wallace said he just wants the city to use the Denton Drive runway rather than pushing all flights out of the side that directly impacts the neighborhoods. 

“I don’t want Love Field to go away,” he said. “That’s a disservice to the community. I just want to be in a world where we can coexist. Southwest has been given all this leeway to impact people who weren’t impacted prior to the Wright Amendment. Southwest Airlines paid for the terminal and they get to do whatever they want.”