Last year I took part in the festivities of PFN (Panama City-Bay County International Airport) closing and the new ECP (Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport) opening on May 23, 2010. This also marked the end of Delta-dominance on this market with Southwest commencing services from day 1 of the new airport.

On May 22, as part of the open house/ribbon cutting of the new airport and terminal a Southwest 737 landed with employees on board and if I remember correctly a second one landed later in the afternoon. Neither were scheduled flights and were filled exclusively with WN employees - thats how they got aircraft to ECP to handle the first flight of the day on the next day, May 23, the first day of scheduled operations (of which I was on that ECP-MCO flight, and for which WN did nothing special). Since WN wasn't already at the new airport all of their equipment was already staged there in advance.

Delta on the other hand ran a reduced schedule on May 22 into PFN. Essentially to eliminate any evening and later arrivals such that no aircraft would remain overnight at the old facility or need to make a jump to the new across the bay. This also means the first day of operations at ECP were a reduced schedule as they lacked three aircraft for the two early morning ATL flights and the one to MEM. As for all of the Delta ground equipment, I'm guessing they moved a good portion of the ground equipment after the last flight left PFN and before the first arrived into ECP.