According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, the work will involve replacing existing terminals with a 20-gate concourse, while expanding baggage facilities. The new concourse should be open by 2011. The article says Southwest will manage the project and kick in up to $75 million to get it started. The city, meanwhile, will work on bond sales via higher landing fees, gate rentals and passenger facility charges to finance the remainder of the project.

Love Field is known locally as the home of Southwest Airlines, which flies exclusively from this airport on Mockingbird Lane. Continental Airlines also has gates there, as does American Airlines Inc.

The 1300-acre Love Field got its start in 1917 as a World War I military training base. The airport, throughout the years, has seen its share of history, serving as one of Charles Lindbergh's stops during his world flight in 1927 and then reactivated as a military modification center during World War II. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the airport was a busy place with Delta Airlines, Braniff International Airways, and American having regular flights. Southwest came on board in 1971.

However, things began to change when Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport opened in 1974 and the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was passed. A year later, Congress passed the Wright /Shelby Amendment to the International Air Transportation Competition Act, which permitted flights from Love Field to fly only within Texas and contiguous states. The only "long-hauls" allowed were commercial craft carrying fewer than 56 passengers. Most of the major airlines moved to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, while Southwest continued operating from Love Field.

In the late 1990s, however, court battles ensued, proving the unconstitutionality of the Wright/Shelby Amendment. During the early 2000s, restrictions on long-haul carriers were lifted, with full repeal to take place in 2014.