The Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP), located to the north of Panama City Beach, is growing, as Bay County, which is serves, continues to evolve.
Parker McClellan, Executive Director of the airport, is confident that the year 2023 is going to be extremely successful for it. Several construction projects are scheduled for this period to expand the facility and satisfy the growing demand.
For instance, they are planning to spend approximately $3.5 million on paving the overflow parking and creating new parking spaces, over $8 million to expand the baggage claim area, and $3.2 million to expand the terminal itself.
Southern Sky Aviation, a company involved in aircraft maintenance, also invested over $25 million in building the second fixed-base operator (a terminal to service small private and corporate airplanes) on the area of 4,000 sq m in the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport. Construction operations have already begun.
According to the airport’s activity report for November, it handled 713,254 passengers over the first 11 months of the current year, which is 115,566 people more than in the same period of 2019 and only 38,610 people fewer than in 2021.
This trend cannot fail to please not only the airport management expecting a further growth of the passenger flow in 2023 but also Florida homeowners who will be able to lease their properties to the ever-increasing flow of tourists.