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PAT KELLY / News Herald Writer
PANAMA CITY 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.

As reported by the News Herald:

Delta Airlines 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.

Tannehill: Delta To Fly Bigger Jets to New Airport

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 06:00 AM PST

As reported by the News Herald:

Delta Air Lines is expected to bring bigger planes and lower prices, [Airport Authority Chairman Joe] Tannehill said. Government officials expect the airport to draw new companies, increase tourism and help the Bay County economy recover from the worst recession since 1975 faster than other areas of the state.

Delta is expected to begin flights of MD-88 jets when the new airport opens at the end of May.

by Alyssa Katz
Heartened by the recent rise in home prices? Don’t get too comfortable. Standard & Poor’s, the credit-rating agency that tells investors what mortgage-backed securities are worth, reports that the increase was just an illusion. It predicts the nation is about to see a deluge of new foreclosures that will drive real estate values back down.

Blame the “shadow inventory” – nearly 1.8 million homes that are on the road to foreclosure but for all kinds of reasons haven’t gotten there yet.

Many homeowners have fallen behind on their mortgages or stopped paying, but foreclosure has not yet arrived. Mortgage servicers, the folks who send you the bills and file for foreclosure when you can’t pay them, are overwhelmed. Courts, too, are backed up. Mortgage modifications and foreclosure moratoriums have put off the day of reckoning for borrowers, but not forever. And unemployment is sabotaging more homeowners every day.

Out of more than $1.6 trillion in existing mortgages that were packaged into mortgage-backed securities by Wall Street, some $425 billion worth are extremely late on their payments, and therefore likely to go into foreclosure. Only a fraction of borrowers who fall seriously behind are able to catch up, with the help of a loan modification. And even then the majority end up falling behind again. That amount of bad mortgage debt has been spiking up every month, slowing down just a little thanks to the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, but still continuing to rise.

Meanwhile, even as the amount of unpaid mortgage debt rises, the number of foreclosed, bank-owned homes for sale has been holding fairly steady. That tells us that the number of foreclosures for sale on the market is actually just a sliver of all the ones that are really out there. S&P’s chilling conclusion: “Overall, it is our opinion that recent positive housing reports should not be construed as a sign that the distress in the residential housing market is abating, but rather should be attributed to the temporarily limited supply of homes on the market.”

The bottom line: just counting the homeowners who are currently behind on their mortgages, along with the existing number of foreclosures for sale, at the current pace it will take nearly three years to sell all the foreclosures out there. That doesn’t include all the borrowers who haven’t fallen behind yet but are going to, because of unemployment or because their Option ARM payments are spiking up or because they just decide to stop paying.

The shadow inventory is equal to half the size of the entire market of homes for sale. When it starts getting listed, expect home prices in areas with lots of foreclosures to plummet. Yes, more.
Tags: Foreclosures, Home Affordable Modification Program, home prices, housing market, mortgages, shadow inventory, Standard Poors

February 15, 2010 05:12:00 PM
PAT KELLY / News Herald Writer
WEST BAY — Under increasing pressure as the May 23 scheduled opening of the new airport near West Bay draws near, Airport Authority board Chairman Joe Tannehill is cracking the whip on construction supervisors.

An obviously frustrated Tannehill told Jeff Dealy, construction program manager for KBR, that the company must do a better job in providing board members with weekly updates on meeting critical deadlines.

“I had some concerns with some of the punch-list items that were turned in late,” Tannehill said Monday. “I want a regular submittal of those things that are critical.”

Although construction of the new $318 million Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport remains “on time and on budget,” Tannehill said, authority board members are entering a decisive period.

Not only must they meet a series of deadlines for the Federal Aviation Administration, Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. Corps of Engineers, but the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has issued a new consent order over stormwater runoff violations.

“I certainly don’t want to be late on anything we have to submit to any of these agencies,” Tannehill said.

Airport officials signed the new DEP consent order Friday detailing new environmental compliance instructions following the silt-laden and permit-busting runoff from heavy January rains.

Despite indicating early last week they would need more time to digest the corrective actions, which include over $58,000 in fines, officials signed the decree last week after “working diligently Wednesday, Thursday and Friday” to put a plan in place, Tannehill said.

“They did sign it (by the Friday deadline) and sent it to us by FedEx,” said DEP spokesman Shawn Hamilton. “They did not request an extension.”

As part of the new stipulations, separate from a July 2009 DEP consent order under which the airport is already operating, construction workers must immediately reduce the turbidity (silt) levels of water being held on site and employ a consultant who will supply DEP officials with daily updates.

The airport is also required within seven days to stabilize the area around the main access road from County 388 to the rental car facilities, as well as provide a report within two weeks detailing the potential damage to surrounding wetlands if another stormwater breach occurs.

The clock for the various corrective actions, whether seven days or two weeks, will begin when DEP officials sign the returned order, most probably today, Hamilton said Monday.

When asked if the DEP might delay the opening of the airport if the consent order was not adhered to in a timely manner, Hamilton said by e-mail that the DEP “cannot speculate on a hypothetical scenario.”

The new airport’s construction has been closely monitored by the DEP since last spring when heavy rains revealed problems with erosion control, resulting in fines of more than $410,000 levied on the Airport Authority, not including the most recent fine.

The DEP has also separately fined Phoenix Construction, the company responsible for site preparation, $1.7 million.

Tannehill said Monday that the airport recently missed by 10 days a self-imposed deadline for the FAA, and both Southwest Airlines and Delta Airlines are closely monitoring issues that concern them.

“I think for the most part KBR is doing a good job,” he said, but time is no longer a luxury and board members needed to be better informed.

“There is a lot of pressure,” Tannehill admitted. “A month ago we might have waited a week. We can’t put an eraser and pencil to these dates any longer.”

Former Countrywide borrowers get cash

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Feb. 16, 2010 – More than 2,700 people will receive checks from a 2008 settlement Florida negotiated with Countrywide Financial Corporation. As part of the settlement, Countrywide is offering foreclosure relief payments to eligible borrowers who returned valid and timely claim forms and releases under a program administered by the Countrywide settlement administrator.

More than $16.9 million will be distributed this week, and each check will be written for just over $6,000.

In July 2008, Attorney General Bill McCollum filed a lawsuit against Countrywide, one of the nation’s largest mortgage companies, for allegedly engaging in deceptive and unfair trade practices. The lawsuit claimed Countrywide put borrowers into mortgages they couldn’t afford or loans with rates and penalties that were misleading. That lawsuit was resolved in October 2008, and the settlement agreement included a foreclosure relief payment program for Florida homeowners with qualifying Countrywide mortgages.

Eligible homeowners should consider the following:

• Important information: The checks must be cashed on or before May 13, 2010.

• A payment under this settlement may be taxable, and recipients should consult a tax advisor if they have any questions concerning possible tax liabilities.

• Recipients with any questions should contact the settlement administrator, Rust Consulting, toll free at (866) 411?6987, or http://www.countrywidesettlementinfo.com.

The settlement also includes $4 million to fund a foreclosure defense assistance program. The money will be provided to organizations over the course of two years, and the first funds were distributed in late 2009. The organizations that receive the grants agree to provide free legal assistance to eligible homeowners who face foreclosure but cannot afford an attorney to review their case.

“These resources, both the checks to homeowners and the grants to fund pro bono foreclosure defense assistance, are substantial assets to Floridians,” says Heather Rodriguez of Holland & Knight law firm and president of the Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association, one of the organizations that received grant funding and has an attorney dedicated to foreclosure defense assistance. “Orange and Osceola counties are both high in foreclosures, and homeowners are struggling.”

Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo was also named in the Countrywide lawsuit and the civil case against him is still pending in Broward County Circuit Court. McCollum has also called on Bank of America, the company that acquired Countrywide after the lawsuit was filed, to be more responsive to consumers trying to modify loans and save their home from foreclosure.