Southwest Airlines likely will bring about 35 new jobs to Bay County initially, a spokeswoman said Thursday.
“It’s a great place to work,” Southwest spokeswoman Christi Day said.
The low-cost carrier announced Wednesday its plan to bring flights to the new Northwest Florida-Panama City International Airport near West Bay. The carrier will have eight flights a day, but routes will not be announced until tickets go on sale in December.
Having a major, domestic carrier is expected to boost the local economy and create more jobs, officials have said. But the airline itself is known as a great place to work and offers the best salaries in the industry, Day said.
Specific jobs, actual job numbers and potential salaries for the new location have not been finalized, Day said. Generally, when Southwest starts up operations, between 30 and 35 jobs are needed immediately, she said.
Day indicated the new airport will not have a Southwest pilot base at first. Any area pilots who might work for Southwest would travel to a pilot base, such as Orlando, to fly out of, Day said.
When the airline will take applications also is unknown, Day said. Announcements about jobs will be on Twitter and Facebook, both online social networking sites. The airline also runs a blog at
www.blogsouthwest.com. Types of jobs and availability are listed at
www.southwest.com.
Jobs might not be limited to pilots or ramp agents. Southwest will boost the airport’s options for drawing concessions and restaurants, airport executive director Randy Curtis said.
“Like any other business that’s driven on the number of customers we have, with the increase in volume we expect, this puts us in a much better position,” Curtis said.
First Class Concessions Inc. will move from the old airport to take either one or both of the restaurant locations at the new airport. The new facility will have three locations for concessions, such as gift shops, Curtis said. Those will be bid out before May, he said.
Would love to have more of them flying direct.
