Inaugural Festivities Culminate With Airport Celebration and News Conference

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla., May 24, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –Southwest Airlines today celebrated the airline’s new service at Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP) with a beach-themed celebration that included plenty of beach balls and local music. Hundreds of Customers and Employees were on hand as Southwest Airlines’ Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO Gary Kelly joined ECP Airport Authority Vice Chairman Bill Cramer and St. Joe CEO Britt Greene in a morning news conference. To see Southwest Airlines’ full ECP schedule or to book a flight to or from ECP, visit southwest.com.

The Dallas-based airline now offers a better way to the beach with a total of eight daily, nonstop, Boeing 737 departures:

Panama City Beach (ECP) to/from Nashville (BNA) – two daily flights

Panama City Beach (ECP) to/from Houston Hobby (HOU) – two daily flights

Panama City Beach (ECP) to/from Baltimore/Washington (BWI) – two daily flights

Panama City Beach (ECP) to/from Orlando (MCO) – two daily flights

In addition to the eight daily nonstop flights, Southwest Airlines will offer direct (with a stop but no change of planes) or connecting service to more than 58 destinations from Panama City Beach, including Dallas and Chicago. Southwest Airlines will operate from Gate 3 at the new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport with approximately 30 Employees who will call the region home.

“Southwest Airlines promises to bring low fares, great Customer Service, and a strong community commitment to the great folks of Northwest Florida,” Kelly said. “Serving this region has been on our wish list for quite some time, and it’s a proud day for Southwest Airlines to finally begin flying to the beautiful Emerald Coast.”

This morning’s press conference capped a weekend full of festivities celebrating the inaugural flights (Southwest officially launched service on Sunday, May 23). The carrier kicked off the weekend by landing the first commercial aircraft at the first U.S. airport to be built in more than a decade. A Southwest Boeing 737 jet was met by a water cannon salute and local Southwest fans and Employees. On Saturday evening, Southwest Airlines hosted the “Tootsies Tweetup,” giving local Customers a chance to mix and mingle with the Social Media-savvy airline and a chance to win roundtrip tickets, at Tootsies, a local establishment. The first Southwest Customers on Sunday morning were serenaded by local band, Todd Sparks and The Shrimpboat Cowboys, and were treated to coffee, a southern breakfast, and beach balls in the Southwest Airlines gate area. Southwest Employees also celebrated the official first day of service by donating volunteer hours with the Florida Trail Association, where they cleared hiking trails and built bridges in Florida Trail’s East Pine Log Trail in Pine Log State Forest. This section of the Florida Trail is about four miles northwest of the northern boundary of the new airport.

To see more details about the carrier’s weekend festivities, visit Southwest’s blog at: www.blogsouthwest.com.

Southwest Airlines now serves seven airports in Florida, and the airline is the largest intra-state carrier, hosting 46 percent of all intra-Florida airline traffic. Southwest began service to Florida in 1996, opening two cities on the same day: Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood and Tampa Bay. Orlando opened on April 7 of the same year. Jacksonville followed in 1997, West Palm Beach in 2001, and Ft. Myers/Naples in 2005. Southwest Airlines honored the State of Florida recently with the unveiling of Florida One, a Boeing 737 emblazoned with an artist’s rendering of the state flag. Click on the following link to see a video of the Florida One aircraft: www.youtube.com.

Southwest Airlines is the nation’s largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded, currently serving 69 cities in 35 states. Based in Dallas, Southwest currently operates more than 3,300 flights a day and has nearly 35,000 Employees systemwide.

www.southwest.com

SOURCE Southwest Airlines

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If you are unable to click on the link above, please copy and paste the URL below into a web browser

http://www.southwest.com/investor_relations/fs_news_releases.html

Southwest Airlines, Investor Relations Department, 2702 Love Field Drive, Dallas, TX 75235

Hey everyone! So the countdown to the new international airport is coming on us quick and I know quite a few people around the country who are very excited about this!

Well some news came to us today about Southwest and it’s great news!
DALLAS, March 25, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) has been named Official Airline of the National Hispanic PR Conference to be held May 10-13 in Dallas. The gathering of more than 400 public relations professionals hopes to foster discussion of new trends and common needs of Hispanic audiences.

“Southwest Airlines believes this is a great opportunity to openly discuss the emergence of new markets and how to best create effective and relevant communication strategies for those audiences,” said Olga Romero, Bilingual Communications Specialist for Southwest. “We are proud the National Hispanic PR Conference will be held in our hometown, Dallas, and hope for great conversation not only about the mission of the conference, but also about Dallas as a destination suited for grand events.”

Southwest Airlines’ headquarters in the city of Dallas supports more than 5,000 Employees based in or near Dallas Love Field airport. To register attendance for the conference, please visit www.hispanicprconference.com and for the best deals in travel, visit www.southwest.com.

“Southwest Airlines’ sponsorship of our industry’s first-ever conference is itself an endorsement, not just of the terrific niche work our industry does in Hispanic public relations, but of diversity,” said Manny Ruiz, President of the Hispanic PR Conference. “We’re truly delighted to work with a company that is not only based in Dallas, the home for our first national conference, but that practices what it preaches about diversity.”

After more than 38 years of service, Southwest Airlines, the nation’s leading low fare carrier, continues to stand above other airlines–offering a reliable product with exemplary Customer Service. Southwest Airlines is the most productive airline in the sky and offers Customers a comfortable traveling experience with all premium leather seats and plenty of legroom. Southwest Airlines, the nation’s largest carrier in terms of domestic passengers enplaned, currently serves 68 cities in 35 states. Southwest currently operates more than 3,200 flights a day and has nearly 35,000 Employees systemwide.

http://www.southwest.com

SOURCE Southwest Airlines

If you haven’t booked a flight to Panama City Beach yet, what are you waiting for? See you on the beach!

Delta Air Lines has announced it will add two additional flights per day with larger aircraft when the new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport opens in late May.

Randy Curtis, airport executive director, said the new jets will be McDonnell Douglas MD-88 models, which have a seating capacity if 142.

Delta currently uses its connector service, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, on flights from Panama City to Atlanta and Memphis, and ASA flies regional Bombardier Canadair jets in the 50- and 70-seat range. The new airport, with its 10,000-foot runway, is expected to begin operations May 23.

The announcement by Delta is seen by airport officials as a direct response to the decision by low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines to begin operations from the new airport. Lower fares by Delta are also expected, Curtis said.

Southwest, which uses only Boeing 737 aircraft with a normal seating capacity of 138, has committed to operating eight daily non-stop flights from Panama City to Orlando, Nashville, Tenn., Baltimore and Houston when the new airport opens.

Delta, via ASA, will continue to operate its regular schedule of flights to Atlanta and Memphis using its regional Canadair jets. The May 23 opening date for the airport comes just a week before Memorial Day, the traditional start of the summer tourism season.

In other business during Tuesday’s Airport Authority board meeting, Jeff Dealy of KBR, program manager for the airport relocation project, said the $318 million facility near West Bay was now 89 percent complete overall, with the terminal at the 85 percent completion mark.

He said the $4 million state-of-the-art 16,000-square-foot baggage handling system was on track for the Transportation Security Administration to begin testing in early April. In addition, several of the outlying structures of the $63 million seven-building terminal complex should be completed by the end of March, Dealy said.

“The biggest issue right now is the ponds and finalizing the storm drainage system,” Dealy said. The system, when finally operational, is expected to eliminate much of the current concerns by the Department of Environmental Protection over un-permitted stormwater discharges from the airport site.

Recent stormwater currently held in pond C, the main filtration facility of the yet-to-be-completed system, is scheduled to begin a draw-down today so work on the system can continue. Dealy said he hoped to have the drainage system finalized by the end of March.

Watershed experts with the St. Andrew Bay Resource Management Association’s Bay Watch Program said they were aware of this week’s discharge plans and would be monitoring the silt levels of nearby Crooked Creek and Burnt Mill Creek for higher-than-permitted turbidity readings.

I know so many people are ready for this airport to be up and running so I thank the New Herald for keeping us updated as we will keep you informed as well!

In just over 3 months time, the panhandle gets the privilege of having a brand new International Airport with escalators and a much better layout then the current Panama City Airport. This grand opening is what so many people around the country are waiting on. Before, airline tickets straight into Panama City were so outrageous, people would fly into Tallahassee or Atlanta and drive down. Now, they are going to have that direct access to us for under $100 in many cities, which we are going to see such a big kick in our tourism industry because of it!
I’m so looking forward to this new (ECP) Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport! Are you?