Bring local brands to Love Field

Here's an idea the City of Dallas should copy: instead of looking at the same bland concessionaires that now service Love Field, convince some local restaurants -- anything from Mothers and Daughters Diner to the Grape -- to establish locations at the city-owned airport. The Austin City Council is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a proposal that would allow Austin food stallwarts Saxon Pub, Hill's Cafe and Nuevo Leon to open locations in Austin-Bergstrom Airport.

Under the proposal, the concessions would be operated by a joint venture of Brazos Concessions Co. and Scott Roberts, who owns the original landmark Salt Lick barbecue restaurant in Driftwood. Brazos operates several other concessions in the airport terminal, including Maudie's Tex-Mex, Earl Campbell's Sports Bar, Schlotzsky's, Salt Lick barbecue, Amy's Ice Creams and the Longhorn Store.

The City is working on a new modernization Love Field Master Plan anyway. Here's another way the city could add some luster to the joint. Love Field becomes a more unique terminal if the concessions feature Dallas-only food establishments rather than ones featuring menus you could find in any other airport in the country.

New plan proposed for Love Field leaves one questioned unanswered

The city's Aviation Department is going before the city council's Transportation and Environment Committeethis afternoon to present ideas about how to modernize Love Field so that it complies with the full expiration of the Wright Amendment in 2014. That will require 20 operating gates, 16 for Southwest Airlines and two each for American and Continental. The committee is looking at three options, but the department is obviously pushing one of them, called Option C, which involves demolishing all three of the current concourses and gates and constructing a new 20-gate one that will extend in a T from the rear of the main terminal. The question I have that I don't see answered in the briefing is what the airlines will use for gates while the construction is in progress. I am assuming that at least one concourse won't be demolished until the new one is built, but it's going to be awfully crowded there if that is the case.