A federal judge rejected Southwest Airlines’ request to pause the reassignment of gates at San Antonio International Airport on Monday — an early piece of larger legal action the company has undertaken after it was shut out of the airport’s new terminal.
Lawyers for the airline alleged that in the past year of discussions with the city, Director of Airports Jesus Saenz had promised Southwest Airlines space in the new terminal.
When Southwest found out three months ago that it was instead being relegated to the old terminal, the company’s lawyers said it had missed out on valuable negotiation opportunities — such as securing more city resources to renovate their existing space.
After roughly an hour of arguments on Monday, Judge Xavier Rodriguez rejected the airline’s request to delay other contracts while it bargains with the city, saying that it would unnecessarily hamstring San Antonio’s overall $2.5 billion airport redevelopment project.
“I feel like I’m being used as a pawn for the negotiations,” Rodriguez said. “You all should continue to talk, but I’m not going to be your mediator for this fight.”
City Manager Erik Walsh has denied that Southwest was promised space in the new terminal and warned that delaying the contracts would slow construction of the new terminal and push negotiations over the agreement that other airlines have signed “back to square one.”
City leaders are taking it seriously and traveled to Dallas last week to huddle with top Southwest Airlines executives at their headquarters. Though the city offered additional money for terminal renovations, they left without a deal.
That’s despite the fact that Southwest Airlines is currently missing out on revenue-sharing opportunities and paying higher use fees because it hasn’t signed the new contract with San Antonio.
Growth plans in jeopardy
For Monday’s hearing, the airline sent two spokesmen, several executives and no fewer than eight lawyers.
After the hearing, Southwest Airlines Vice President of Airport Affairs Steve Sisneros vowed to continue challenging the legality of San Antonio’s criteria for choosing which airlines were assigned to which terminals in the first place.
The company has alleged the city used “subjective criteria” that discriminated against Southwest and its customers as a low-fare carrier.
“First, and most importantly, we need to go through the preliminary injunction hearing, to go through discovery, to better understand how the city of San Antonio came to their decision on how Southwest is not a fit,” Sisneros said.
Also speaking to reporters after the hearing, Walsh contended the decision was made based on the physical space needs of the various airlines, not customer profile.
“What you heard in the courtroom was not anything that was part of the city’s process,” Walsh said. “And frankly, I was a little offended by that.”
Sisneros said the airline wasn’t considering leaving San Antonio over the disagreement.
But staying in the old terminal, he said, presents an obstacle for the company’s growth plans.
“Terminal A doesn’t allow for the growth in what we wanted to do here. So how do you remedy that?” he said. “That’s why we pleaded with the city not to move forward with approving the lease… to give us time to do that, but the city ultimately decided against that.”
