By Rebecca Rayko,
AWN Editor
After facing down a 20-year legal restriction and a venerable hometown airline, Legend Airlines finally took to the skies last Wednesday.
The inaugural flight of Dallas-based Legend flew roundtrip to Washington Dulles Airport last Wednesday, kicking off the event with a week's worth of celebrations.
Those following the challenging path Legend embarked upon to get to this point would say the airline has certainly earned some celebratory time. Not only did the airline's founders have to work around the Wright Amendment, which restricted operations from Legend's base of Love Field, it faced considerable opposition from American Airlines.
Legend recently won the three-year legal battle - waged by Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the city of Fort Worth, American Airlines and others - to fly from Love Field. The victory is conditional upon Legend operating aircraft with 56 seats or fewer.
But this is exactly what Legend had in mind. Unlike other start-ups, Legend is catering to the upper end of the market with the spacious 56-seat layout on its Boeing DC-9 aircraft. From all-leather seats surrounded by nearly four feet of legroom to gourmet meal service, Legend plans to provide first-class service at full coach fares.
All seats come with laptop connections, AT&T airfones and up to 24 channels of DirecTV programming received by LiveTV's in-flight system.
Legend is hoping to pull lucrative business away from American, Southwest and other carriers in the D/FW market. American flies 70% of the traffic out of its hub at D/FW Airport, while Southwest is firmly entrenched at Love Field.
Legend was well capitalized with more than $62 million in startup funds and will start service with four reconfigured DC-9s. Legend was founded in 1996 by industry veteran T. Allan McArtor, who spent most of his time until last week fighting legal battles to get his airline off the ground.
Legend received its operating certificate (Part 121) from the FAA on April 2 after passing conformity inspections and completing the required proving flights.
The carrier began regularly scheduled operations to Washington Dulles, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas last Friday.
