One More Reason Not to Fly: At DFW Airport, You Could Get Your Stuffs Stole

The Consumerist has picked up WFAA-Channel 8's piece concerning the rise in thefts reported at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in recent years. Reports Jason Whitely, in 2003 there were 266 reports of thefts and stolen vehicles at the airport -- and 607 last year. Meanwhile, the significantly smaller Love Field...

By Robert Wilonsky

February 12, 2009

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The Consumerist has picked up WFAA-Channel 8's piece concerning the rise in thefts reported at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in recent years. Reports Jason Whitely, in 2003 there were 266 reports of thefts and stolen vehicles at the airport -- and 607 last year. Meanwhile, the significantly smaller Love Field hasn't seen the number top 20 during the same time period.

Says DFW spokesman Ken Capps, maybe the rise in crime is due to the fact DFW "is a place the size of the island of Manhattan with 225,000 daily residents all moving." To which one Consumerist consumer responds, "Most of that is runways and tarmac, silly hyperbolic spokesman." Another wonders whether the rise in crime is due to a rise in passengers, simple as that, but the WFAA piece comes one week after DFW officials acknowledged a $6 million drop in revenue during the final three months of 2008, the first quarter of the airport's current fiscal year. Said DFW CEO Jeff Fegan, "As passengers go down, our revenues go down as well." And the number of passengers is indeed decreasing: December 2008 saw some 150,000 fewer folks fly through the airport than hopped on or off a plane at DFW in December '07.

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