That's why Ron Ricks, senior vice president of law, airports and public affairs for Southwest Airlines -- a chief proponent for repealing the Wright Amendment -- has been on the road seeking grass-roots support from consumers for the cause.

The Wright Amendment, enacted in 1979 to encourage growth and development at what was then a new Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, is a dinosaur in the post deregulation era.

Ricks came to Las Vegas from Southwest's Dallas headquarters recently, but he couldn't fly his own airline nonstop to McCarran International Airport to talk about it because of Wright. Southwest's customers can't buy a Dallas-Las Vegas ticket because provisions of the Wright Amendment also prohibit the airline from marketing the route in any way.

Lifting the ban is important to Las Vegas, since Southwest is the city's busiest airline.

Nevada residents are starting to become more educated about the measure and the state's political muscle may be enlisted to get involved in overturning it. That's a good thing because on the Senate side, consumers aren't likely to get much help from Texas lawmakers who don't want to offend business constituents at American Airlines, who oppose repeal of Wright because of the new competition it would generate.

American has a handful of flights connecting Las Vegas with DFW, the world's sixth busiest airport.

To bolster Southwest's claims that the Wright Amendment has a detrimental impact on the Las Vegas economy, the company hired an aviation consultant to conduct a study.

According to the study by the Campbell-Hill Aviation Group Inc., keeping the Wright Amendment in place costs the Las Vegas economy more than $34 million a year.

Because of the "Southwest effect," which occurs whenever the airline participates in a market, fares generally fall overall as competitors scramble to offer flights that cost as low as Southwest's.

The Campbell-Hill study suggests that Las Vegas' Dallas market would grow by an estimated 72,000 passengers if consumers had low-fare Southwest to rely on for service.

Texas Reps. Jeb Hensarling and Sam Johnson of Texas responded by introducing the Right to Fly Act to repeal the Wright Amendment in May. A Senate version has yet to be introduced.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., a member of the Senate Transportation Committee, has expressed an interest in sponsoring a bill, primarily because he sees it as a free-market issue.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., told me last week that Southwest officials have paid a visit to him to explain the issue and that he is in the middle of his due diligence on the matter.

The Nevada Senate weighed in with a resolution in support of federal legislation to repeal the Wright Amendment.

"American's political position on this issue doesn't offend me," Ricks said in his recent visit. "They're just trying to position themselves to satisfy their own shareholders. We're trying to do the same thing."

But the public policy position taken by the operators of the DFW airport does offend him. He looks at the airport's stance as contrary to what most consumers want.

Ricks knows because the Wright Amendment is such a political hot potato for Texas that he has to drum up support from around the nation if he's going to get anywhere in repeal.

He and Southwest co-founder Herb Kelleher know that their arm-twisting will involve finding lawmakers that won't obstruct the repeal legislation. From that perspective, who's better than Ensign and Reid carrying the ball on a bill that would benefit the state's tourism?

In other tourism news

The Nevada Commission on Tourism has signed a friendship agreement with the Shanghai Muncipal Tourism Administrative Commission, the third such agreement with Chinese tourism organizations.

Similar agreements have been signed with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Tourism and the Lone Mountain-Jin Gong Mountain of Hubei Province.

The agreements have no force of law, but the state's tourism leaders believe they enhance the relationship-building officials feel is necessary if the state is ever going to get the nonstop flights between China and Las Vegas that they want so badly.

Shanghai is one of China's most modern cities and is a candidate for trans-Pacific nonstop flights to Las Vegas by several airlines.

Richard N. Velotta covers tourism for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4061 or by e-mail at velotta@lasvegassun.com.