Houston Mayor Annise Parker is planning to announce Wednesday morning that the city and Southwest Airlines have come to an agreement on how to finance a $100 million expansion of Hobby Airport to accommodate international flights, according to a City Hall source.
The agreement is subject to approval by City Council. The mayor said last week that if the city and Southwest could negotiate a memorandum of understanding, she intended to put Hobby expansion on the May 30 Council agenda.
No details of the agreement have yet been divulged. But several City Hall sources say Parker has scheduled a news conference at the Southwest ticket counter at Hobby Airport.
We’ll see what that amounts to. Southwest has been pretty aggressive about this, with CEO Gary Kelly sort of promising to pay for it all. Whatever the deal is, Council will have to vote on it, presumably next week. In the meantime, prior to this announcement the proposal picked up some endorsements:
The Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau has endorsed expansion of Hobby Airport to accommodate a proposal by Southwest Airlines to start international flights in 2015. But that endorsement comes with a caveat.
In a released statement from Lindsey Brown, the organization’s director of marketing and PR, the Bureau announced:
As the official destination marketing organization for Houston and our region, the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau supports expanding international air service at William P. Hobby Airport that encourages reasonable air service pricing. We have historically supported the expansion of Houston air service and we believe it is good for our customers and the citizens of Houston/Harris County. International meetings and tourism are an essential part of our core mission. The case for allowing international travel through Hobby Airport is a strong one, but that move should not significantly diminish existing international traffic at Bush Intercontinental Airport. We encourage the City of Houston to determine what actions will provide the best service and competitive fares for the traveling public and the greatest benefit to the Houston hospitality community.
Also on Friday, the Greater Houston Partnership made official its position in support of Hobby expansion. Its board of directors voted to approve a resolution previously supported by both its Executive Committee and its Business Issues Committee.
We’ll know more in a little while. At this point, I will be surprised if this doesn’t get done.