Across North Texas, cities are jostling for position in the race to be the home of Amazon’s coveted second headquarters and the tens of thousands of jobs that would follow.
Each has played up their respective strengths -- whether it’s abundant available land, a close-in urban setting or comparatively affordable housing markets -- but there's one asset they can all lay claim to, and it’s sure to be a key selling point in the region’s overall pitch to Amazon.
Between the globe-spanning reach of DFW International Airport and the robust domestic access provided by a post-Wright Amendment Love Field, North Texas boasts a level of air connectivity that's virtually unmatched in the United States, and, in some regards, even globally.
“I think air connectivity is going to be one of our strongest suits, you really can’t beat it,” said Bernard Weinstein, an economist at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. “Number one because we’re in the middle of the country and number two because all the destinations [Amazon] wants to have access to can be reached from DFW and Love Field.”
In the September request for proposals that started what could be the largest corporate recruitment frenzy the country has ever seen, Amazon lists air service alongside things like incentives, labor force and quality of life as important considerations in locating HQ2. The company has said it plans to invest $5 billion to build its second headquarters, which eventually could employ 50,000 people.
The Seattle-based company specifically identified nonstop daily flights to New York, the Bay Area, Washington D.C. and Seattle among its must haves.
And while many metropolitan areas can boast of daily flights to those markets, few offer the frequency of service or the breadth of other destinations that D-FW’s two passenger airports do.
Global connections
As the largest hub for American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, DFW Airport resides in a tier of mega-airports along with the likes of Chicago, Denver, Atlanta and New York.
A 2017 report from aviation data provider OAG ranked DFW Airport fourth in the U.S. for its domestic connectivity and 27th for its international connectivity, based on its number of destinations served, the frequency of flights and the number of available connections within a given timeframe. For domestic flights, only Chicago, Atlanta and Charlotte ranked higher.
“If you have more connecting points, you have more people coming into the hub airport, which in turns feeds more passengers to the outbound services...It soon becomes a bit of a self perpetuating feast,” said John Grant, a senior analyst at OAG. “Where there would otherwise be three [daily flights], there could be four, there could be five.”
That frequency of daily flights could help DFW stand out compared to smaller cities that aren’t home to an airline hub. Between DFW Airport and Love Field, the region offers as many as 14 non-stop daily flights to Seattle, with one departing nearly every hour from 6:00 a.m. to 10 p.m.
By comparison, Austin, another much-discussed possibility for Amazon’s second headquarters, has at most four non-stop daily flights to Seattle, clustered near the start and end of the day.
Love advantages
Love Field doesn't have DFW Airport's global reach, but it does offer benefits that any city would be happy to have.
First off is its urban location, located just seven miles and a 15 minute drive, traffic permitting, from downtown Dallas.
With the lifting of Wright Amendment restrictions in 2014, passenger traffic at the airport has surged by more than 75 percent, as Southwest built up its service to all corners of the country. The added competition has helped drive fares down at a rate that has outpaced the national average over the last three years.
The airport has also added a new tenant in recent months that's likely familiar to many Amazon executives, with Seattle-based Alaska Airlines taking over gates at Love Field as part of its 2016 acquisition of Virgin America.
Other strengths
DFW’s connectivity advantages are less stark when stacked up against other cities with major airport hub operations like Chicago, Atlanta or Denver. But it does have geography on its side, at least for domestic flights, with its central location making any point in the continental U.S. accessible within about four hours by air.
The region also doesn’t have to typically deal with the winter storms that can quickly derail operations at other U.S. airports.
DFW Airport CEO Sean Donohue said his team has been working with chambers of commerce in Dallas and Fort Worth to provide information about the region’s air service for use in the Amazon pitch.
“We’ll continue to be a regional partner on this,” Donohue said. “We have tremendous depth and tremendous breadth of service. It’s not just that we serve [major destinations]. We serve them with a lot of frequency, which obviously the business person really focuses on.”
The airport has recently focused on building up its access to international markets to complement its domestic strength, with nonstop service added to more than a dozen foreign destinations in the last three years, according to figures from the Dallas Regional Chamber.
That group’s CEO Dale Petroskey, who’s helping lead the regional recruiting effort for Amazon, said North Texas’s two airports are the “crown jewels” in presentations made to companies and executives thinking about relocating or expanding.
“Aviation is always one of our strongest hands to play,” Petroskey said in a statement. “Our central location is also a critical selling point, as we are roughly equidistant to New York or Seattle; Miami or Los Angeles; and Mexico City or Toronto ... This is a huge competitive advantage. And the fact that we have two airports with daily service and nonstop flights to every key business market across the country and around the world only magnifies that advantage.”
DFW Airport also has plenty of room to grow along with the region, with a footprint that is famously larger than the island of Manhattan. The airport has invested $2 billion in renovating its terminals in recent years and is considering plans to build a sixth terminal to support future growth.
And even if North Texas misses out on the Amazon sweepstakes, it’s airports will continue to play a major role in the region’s economy, their combined impact is estimated at more than $37 billion annually, and serve as an attractive selling point whenever the next suitor comes calling.
