Panama City airport gets Southwest

Southwest Airlines plans to begin serving the new Panama City, Fla., airport when the facility opens in May 2010. Three Florida cities, Panama City, Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach, all hoped to get the discount airliner. Mobile, Ala., also made a pitch. The media in Pensacola also report that doesn’t mean Pensacola is out of the running since the company considers Pensacola and Panama City separate markets. According to Reuters, Southwest forged a deal with St. Joe Co., a huge landowner in the Panhandle, in which St. Joe will make quarterly cash payments to Southwest to cover shortfalls in the carrier's operations at the airport in the first three years of service. (Sources: Florida Freedom News, Pensacola News Journal, Reuters, 10/21/09)