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Huge new airport proposed for Panama City

Southron

By Southron
in Florida

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Go Gators Burg

Go Gators

Posted
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Many fail to realize, yes we don;t have big numbers, that hasn't stopped stuff in the past. Look at what the model of this project is, SW Florida Int'l in Ft. Myers. The airports size and draw will explode the numbers way up, to atleast 300,000-500,000 the first year of opporation, then rapidly increasing after that, to over one million 2 years after opening. Tallahassee will probably never see those numbers, at least in the next 10 years easily. As a whole, this will benefit this relatively overlooked section of Florida.
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poonther Town

poonther

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Um TLH already is around the 1 million mark if your counting it by boarding and deboarding.

While all this is exciting news JB, I'm still going to be cautiously optimistic about it. I've had ties to Bay County for over 30 years and I've seen promises come and go. Again I do hope all this works out, but that's an awful lot of airlines taking a gamble on a start up airport. If you build it, they don't always come...see Mid-America Airport in Illinois.

IMHO 4 things have to happen to make all or most of the things you've suggested happen:

Bay County and the Emerald Coast have to attract more tourist that arrive by air thus changing the scope of how things are done now.

Even w/the powerhouse St. Joe in the area, the housing market has to come to back to great levels.

Many of the airlines have to get in better financial shape.

PC/Bay County has to attract big business. The population of the area can't support all these airlines nor can the off-season for tourist. Currently besides the military, there isn't any big business in the area. The airport may help w/this.

I do hope all you say will happen and I hate being overly-skeptical, usually not my demeanor, but I have been grounded in the area for an awful long time and have seen how things work. :(

JB is your source an unbiased source for all this information just like your source for SWA is?

On preview: GG, St. Joe has been modeling their efforts in Bay County after what has happened in Lee County after the new airport was built. I use have a link to a study St. Joe did about this, but now they seem to have deleted it.

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Florida Megalopolis

Florida

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I was also going to say that about the 1 Million mark at TLH, but you beat me to it Poonther.

GG, Southwest already fly to Orlando, MCO and Jacksonville? Your statement above seemed to imply having them go to PC is better than them going to either of the other two cities instead. The only reason I'd question their decision to go to PC rather than TLH is because our numbers are already much higher than theirs. But as we've already discussed regarding the Airline industry in this region, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

JB, that's an awful lot of information at once. Did it all pour in yesterday or had you known some of these things for a while?

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poonther Town

poonther

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^I'm still not sold on the fact they'd expand exponentially at PFN either. TLH is a more month to month stable market. Even w/all that is coming to Bay County, their monthly numbers would have wide swings in them.

I've thought about it some and should SWA decide to come to PFN, I believe part of the reason is that this location could pull from Pensacola over to Tally and up to Dothan. It's central to all of us in the Panhandle and NFL. PNS would not be. However I am a tad surprised they'd want to ignore the Mobile/Baldwin County market. Those are some pretty big numbers there and New Orleans is quite a drive from there.

Anyway it's all interesting and time will tell.

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Florida Megalopolis

Florida

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Sorry about getting my numbers jumbled for KTLH, I do apologize, very great city, got many friends there, love the place. Anywho, I've had some stored for a while and decided to announce it yesterday. Southwest would rather go to a place where its numebrs could expand exponentially, and do it quickly, lets face it TLH wouldn't be able to really do that. I'm not hatin on TLH, but its only true.
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poonther Town

poonther

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You make some valid points JB. Hope you don't feel we are picking on you. I appreciate the information you are supplying even if I question it. It's fun to read about it and discuss/debate it.

I know about those short runways at PFN all too well...flown there many times. When I lived in SFL, I'd have to fly from FLL to MCO on USAirways. Then the MCO flight which was prop plane would go to VPS first and unload/load and then to PFN. Flying from VPS to PFN takes about 10 minutes in the air. Also flying in a prop over the Gulf on a summer afternoon was always a bumpy if not scary ride. Do they still run that route? Or has USAirways left PFN?

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Go Gators Burg

Go Gators

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I was also going to say that about the 1 Million mark at TLH, but you beat me to it Poonther.

GG, Southwest already fly to Orlando, MCO and Jacksonville? Your statement above seemed to imply having them go to PC is better than them going to either of the other two cities instead. The only reason I'd question their decision to go to PC rather than TLH is because our numbers are already much higher than theirs. But as we've already discussed regarding the Airline industry in this region, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

JB, that's an awful lot of information at once. Did it all pour in yesterday or had you known some of these things for a while?

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poonther Town

poonther

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First the new PC airport is going to be a good 2 hour haul from Tally even if you drive fast like me. The roads are the reason b/c you can only use the interstate so much unfortunately and the airport is moving to West Bay which is almost Walton County. If they'd only build that N/S expressway soon like they've been talking about...

Second on some levels I agree w/JB too. However in the first ten years I see only the following airlines there:

Delta

NW

USAirways

Continental

possibly AA or United but not both

(Most of these flights will still be on CRJ's)

I also see one and only one discount airline. That probably being SWA based on what JB has told us or maybe our old friend AirTran.

And maybe just maybe on the far outside chance, a seasonal weekly flight from Canada.

However I do see the cargo side of things building up and going bonkers.

All of that is a HUGE step up from what is going on now at PFN.

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Florida Megalopolis

Florida

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First the new PC airport is going to be a good 2 hour haul from Tally even if you drive fast like me. The roads are the reason b/c you can only use the interstate so much unfortunately and the airport is moving to West Bay which is almost Walton County. If they'd only build that N/S expressway soon like they've been talking about...

Second on some levels I agree w/JB too. However in the first ten years I see only the following airlines there:

Delta

NW

USAirways

Continental

possibly AA or United but not both

(Most of these flights will still be on CRJ's)

I also see one and only one discount airline. That probably being SWA based on what JB has told us or maybe our old friend AirTran.

And maybe just maybe on the far outside chance, a seasonal weekly flight from Canada.

However I do see the cargo side of things building up and going bonkers.

All of that is a HUGE step up from what is going on now at PFN.

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poonther Town

poonther

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"Yankee Judges"

"Letting Northerners and foreigners from Europe vacation here"

Good Lord! What is it 1860? :huh:

This environmental lawsuit has been pending for quite some time. I referenced it in this thread back in August of this year. I think it's more about destroying the water quality and watershed than it is about St. Joe's pine trees.

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ATLman1 Hamlet

ATLman1

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Ah crap, oh well. This is probably just in response to the stupid lawsuit up in New York or where ever up north. Once this passes, this thing will be on the road, just last ditch efforts to stop the airport, which IMO are pointless. This thing WILL get built, just a few speed bumps from tree huggers.
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