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Generally, from the airport you will board a rental car shuttle bus. This bus services every rental car company established within Dallas-Love. The bus departs every few minutes arrives at the Rental Car Center withing 10 minutes, usually.
Getting out of Dallas Love Field with your newly rented vehicle is not too difficult. As you leave the car rental facility on Cedar Springs Road or Ansley Avenue, you will travel about one-half of a mile until you run into W. Mockingbird Lane. Turn left on West Mockingbird if traveling to the Center of Dallas, then veer right towards Lemmon South. Turn right on Lemmon South and travel South on this road until you reach the center of Dallas. By the way, after driving on Lemmon South for a little over 2 miles, there's a nice place to eat right off of Lemmon on Oak Lawn Avenue called EatZi's. Oak Lawn Ave. intersects Lemmon. Turn right on Oak Lawn and travel less than a block. EatZi's is a lightly-colored building on the right hand side of the road. EatZi's is a neat little eating place, especially if you're a sandwich/salad person.
One thing to note, the Dallas Love Field Airport is actually closer to the city center of Dallas than Dallas - Fort Worth International Airport. In fact, the Dallas Love Field Airport is within a couple of miles of the center of Dallas. Obviously, when choosing between the two airports, there may be more variables than location, but proximity to various destinations should be considered.
When returning your rental vehicle back to Dallas Love Field, you will want to consider re-fueling before returning the car. Doing so will save you a little cash. There are several gas stations on Lemmon Ave. heading back to the airport. Notably, there is Chevron station very close on the right hand side of the road within a half-mile of Dallas Love. It sits across from a Lexus Dealership.
Dallas Love Field is a city-owned airport that handles much of Southwest Airlines’ air traffic flow coming in and out of the State of Texas. (Southwest’s Headquarters is within a stone’s throw of Love Field.) The airport handles 7 million-plus passengers a year out of roughly 30 gates. Note that the gate numbers are in the process of diminishing to 20 by 2014 as part of a massive modernization plan being undertaken. However, this will coincide with an increase in direct flights to more major cities via Southwest Airlines. This should be a net positive for the traveling public.
Love Field’s major strengths are location and superb traffic flow management both in and out of the airport terminal. The airport has excellent proximity to Downtown Dallas Central Business District (15 minutes tops), I-35 (5 minutes), the upscale Park Cities and Southern Methodist University (10 minutes) and is 2 minutes from the Dallas Tollway for quick access to North Dallas, Plano, and Frisco (three of the growing population areas of the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex). Note that if there is a north wind, the planes will land directly over the Downtown area, giving the effect of flying THROUGH the downtown area. This speaks to how close the airport is to the center of the city.
Expanded parking areas created in the early 2000’s alleviated gridlock issues on the main egress roads into the airport and expanded parking options. A newly installed naturally lighted skywalk and moving walkway from the covered parking structure, makes for an easy, quick and safe walk from car to gate. Current airlines serving Love Field are Southwest, Continental Express, and American/American Eagle.
Southwest Airlines has the dominant number of gates. From Love Field, Southwest offers non-stop flights to Houston, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Birmingham, New Orleans, Albuquerque, San Antonio, and Austin among other cities mostly in the south. Look for that number to ramp up in 2014 when Federal restrictions on domestic flights to and from Love Field expire. For the traveler, this will likely mean options to fly from major cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago and Boston direct to one of the most conveniently located and smartest run airports in the United States.
Despite the needed addition of a people mover terminal to the central City to be completed in 2014, Dallas is very much a driving city. The area’s landmarks, business hubs, fantastic restaurants, and places of interest are spread out greatly. You’ll stand to miss much worth experiencing without the freedom of driving. Love Field is fully served by all the major rental car companies as well as locally operated choices.
As mentioned, Love Field is in the process of undergoing renovations budgeted at hundreds of millions of dollars. (The current main terminal building dates back to 1957. With the airfield itself dating back to 1917. See picture below dating back from 1918.) The plan will modernize the concourses, replace terminals, and increase the comfort and amenities in the airport by adding concession areas and likely more choices. The project will be completed in 2014.
Currently, Love Field has a McDonald's (walk-up only with no seating area, a central deli snack bar (which also serves beer and wine), two Chili’s “Too” bar/restaurants, a Pizza Hut express, a Cinnabonn bakery stand, and a Dreyers Ice Cream Stand. There is a book store with a full complement of magazines and newspapers. There is also a gift shop where you can purchase sundries. Hudson’s has a clothing boutique and there is a small Sunglass Hut vendor. There is also a gift shop closer to the main terminal where sports apparel from the local teams can be purchased.
The Love Field terminal is basically an L shape with the majority of the concessions found at the meeting point of the L, or at the terminal entry way connected to the airport’s main entrance. Because of Love Field’s compact size, all these vendors are very convenient to many of the Southwest gates passengers utilize. Love Field’s major strengths are the ease of finding your way around and the short distances to actually get to your gate.
For the volume of passengers it serves, the concession volume and choices are slightly smaller than you would imagine, but not sadly deficient. That will surely change after the renovations, as it appears the contracts for concessions are going to be open bid for the first time. This development will likely lead to more choices and hopefully more reasonable pricing.
One cool spot found in the main concourse area of the airport entryway is an aviation history museum that is definitely worth a few minutes of your time. Also the airport passenger moving walkways mentioned earlier added wonderful wall art work by local artists in the early 2000s. Overall, Love Field does well in maximizing the beauty potential of an older structure.
As you’d expect, the prices for purchasing from the concessionaires are higher than you’d pay outside the airport. On the plus side, there is a functional business center, conference room space, and wireless internet capability throughout the airport. Love Field is function over form all the way.
After picking up your rental car, you will find yourself very near to the center of the city of Dallas. So, driving distances to Dallas hot spots will be minimal. But if you think you'll need your car to branch out a little further outside Dallas, we have listed some local communities and their car rental driving distances for your convenience.
Car Pickup to Middle of Dallas Downtown, 6 Miles.
Car Pickup to Arlington, 19 Miles.
Car Pickup to Fort Worth, 31 Miles.
Car Pickup to Richardson, 15 Miles.
Car Pickup to Mesquite, 34 Miles.
Car Pickup to Plano, 20 Miles.
Car Pickup to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, 14 Miles.
Essentially all types of vehicles you would normally be able to rent will be available here. These include economy cars, luxury cars and SUV's if there are any available. Pre-Book your vehicle today!
Source: Dallas Love Airport Homepage