DeFuniak Springs 



DeFuniak Springs Airport is located 2 miles west of the city on U.S. Rt. 

 90. It is the only general airport in Walton County and has a paved runway of 

 3,200 ft. 



AIRPORT OPERATIONS 



To establish the level of activity among the airports in Northwest Flor- 

 ida, Standard FAA workload measures were employed. The basic measure for 

 commercial airports is the number of enplaning passengers per year. Past and 

 projected passenger enplanements for the commercial airports are shown in 

 Table 10. 



Commercial airline forecasts were made by the Florida Department of 

 Transportation as part of the Florida Aviation system Plan (Florida Department 

 of Transportation 1975). The forecasting employed (1) correlation analysis 

 (population history with enplanement history), (2) share of the marked 

 regional enplanement history with U.S. enplanement history, and (3) linear 

 fit (regional enplanements with regional population). The variables used were 

 population, payroll, and tourist accommodations. These forecasts, shown in 

 Table 10 predict that the Pensacola Regional Airport will be the dominant and 

 fastest growing airport in Northwest Florida from 1980 to 1990. Growth is 

 based on the number of takeoffs and landings per year (aircraft operations). 



Table 10. Number of past (1960, 1965, 1970, and 1974) and predicted (1980, 

 1985, 1990) air carrier enplanements for commercial airports in Northwest 

 Florida (adapted from Florida Department of Transportation 1975). 



Historical and predicted annual aircraft operations for the general avia- 

 tion airports for Northwest Florida are shown in Table 11. Future operation 

 levels are taken from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aviation Forecasts 

 (U.S. Department of Transportation 1979). The procedure used was to apply the 

 FAA forecasted growth percentage (42%) for general aviation aircraft opera- 

 tions from 1979 to 1991 for Northwest Florida and then allocate this growth 

 based on each airport's market share of operations reported for 1979. Only 

 Ferguson and Destin-Fort Walton Beach are expected to exceed 50,000 operations 



41 



