A couple recent news articles featured Panama City Beach...

In the first, the new Northwest Flroida Beaches International Airport is described as getting off to a "slow start" with flight occupancy rates at 60 precent. The article questions whether this is sustainable and if Southwest will stick around beyond their 3-year subsidy deal with St. Joe.
New Fla. Panhandle airport slow to draw passengers

The second article is a little more upbeat... featuring Panama City Beach along with Costa Rica, Peru, Boston, London and Paris as great winter travel destinations:
Five value destinations for winter travel

Enjoy!

Thanks !!

In my very professional opinion (and some of the news stories noted such)...

The airport opened and then tourism in your area suffered from the oil spill. Something that hit harder than any remnants of a hurricane. Plus a bad economy.

Southwest will continue to serve the area (per their agreement with St. Joe). Let winter turn into spring turn into summer and things will improve on a major scale.

Why?

The economy is improving. People are traveling. The demand of people who 1. Did not vacation on your beaches because of the spill and 2. The people who did not fly in because of tight money... WILL be a thing of the past. They will be back, and their friends will be wanting to experience the area now that they are not scared off by the spill.

Southwest (with the buyout of AirTran) will soon be into Key West. They have their eyes on ALL of the Southeast as a growth area. You can figure out the rest for yourself.

I continue to be bullish on the entire area. Been looking at it for a long time as a place to early-retire. It is still very much on my radar!

On the local news this morning, airport director states AP article is false and misleading. Air traffic is steadily increasing and other positive points he mentioned.

Thanks for the comments guys. And, welcome back Ted!

Here's an article from WMBB explaining just what Downtown42 mentioned:
Article On New Airport Draws Fire

I think maybe some expectations in the public (and media) were a little unreasonable. It takes time to build traffic to any destination, regardless of the travel options.

Some guy snapped at the school board meeting yesterday, geeeeezzzzz.

Yeah, that was crazy. Just glad no one else was hurt or worse. I'm sure it's all over the national news by now since the whole thing was captured by news cameras inside the meeting room.

We were eating at Hunt's Oyster Bar just 1 hr after.(2mi away) Hunt's great place nice peeps. Same for Dusty's.

I wouldn't mind flying in but I am no fan of the TSA and their new scans and search procedures. I do understand the need for security but I watched them search my sister who looks like Aunt Bee while letting others cruise by. I dunno!

Careful, Ridge. Your friend and protector the government might feel the need to reeducate you about such subversive and liberty loving ideas.

You're right Bob. I hear lobotomies are making a comeback!

Ridge, because I'm a libertarian, the state of Missouri says that I might be a potential terrorist. This is report that says that people who support third parties, support Ron Paul, believe in states rights, members of Campaign for Liberty, believe in the Constitution.

Apparently, people who have republican and democrat bumper stickers are okay, though. People who OBEY are okay.

http://www.constitution.org/abus/le/...gic-report.pdf

What a report! Somehow it conjures up a visual of the balding federal agent that fell out of the plane in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. He's gotta be the author! It is sad that governmental thinking has gone this way. I better hurry and get my new AK47!

That wasn't from a single author, that was from the Missouri Information Analysis Center and went out to the Missouri Highway Patrol. So if you got pulled over with a third party bumper sticker or something in favor of liberty, you were already suspected to be a potential threat. The next step is this collaboration between the FBI and spying on your neighbor.

http://www.infragard.net/index.php?mn=0

I mean I work at a hospital and saw a suspicious character once and I wrote the FBI about it. That's one thing. It's another when they recruit civilians to go through background checks and give them special information to make them feel important and with this added sense of power and knowledge, ask them to spy on their neighbors. This is straight out of, "The Gulag Archipelago."

P.S. There are no beaches on the Archipelago.

Several state and federal agencies have posted similar opinions. Their opinions on the history may not always agree but in the end they still think anyone who believes in the validity of the constitution is a threat to the nation that they invision. It is sad that this is where we are but then again a free nation will always be faced with challenges. It is up to those who love the true American way of life to speak their minds and support the causes that are intune with the freedoms which we are so blessed.