Building a completely new airport in the United States is not an easy thing to do, especially if that airport has a 10,000-ft (3,048-m) runway, a 5,000-to-6,000 ft (1,524-to-1,829 m) crosswind runway in the works and land reserved for an 8,400-ft (2,560-m) parallel runway. After detailing excellent reasons for building an airport, land and financing must be found, approvals must be obtained from local, regional, national and environmental authorities, and economic justifications must be locked in. Given all of this, it is not surprising that it wasn’t until late May that the first new U.S. air carrier airport of the 21st century — the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (KEPC) — opened.
And what timing: Citizens of the region centered around Panama City, justifiably proud of the area’s pristine white beaches, found themselves on the day the airport opened staring out into the Gulf of Mexico, watching for signs of oil drifting from the damaged well several hundred…
