Panama City’s New Airport Prepares for Opening

Have you heard about Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport? Perhaps not - but it's an interesting story. For once, it's the first international airport constructed here post-9/11, which is certainly a good milestone. The airport will open just about a month from now, and will be replacing the current Panama City-Bay County International Airport. That airport is only served by Delta at the moment, and that airline will be moving all of its service to the new airport, and will even be upgrading service a bit as it adds mainline service to some Atlanta flights.

But what's even more interesting is Southwest's entrance here. The airline has focused on larger cities like Minneapolis, Boston, and New York of late, and this is a pretty small market. So what brought them over here? Incentives - something I've talked about here before. St. Joe, a large real estate company that's been developing this area is helping Southwest out financially here. To put it simply, they will prevent Southwest from losing money the first couple of years. The hope is that air service from Southwest - now the country's largest domestic carrier - will provide a boost to the area.

You can read more about the new airport here (tip of the hat to my friend Paul), and you can see a Southwest ad about it below!