Pan Am Pays $300,000 in Back Rent

Airport staffers tell GlobeSt.com that president Larry Dale, a commercial developer and former mayor of Sanford, could have placed a lien on the estimated $5 million worth of property the Portsmouth, NH-based carrier owns at the airport but decided instead to give owners Fink and Timothy Mellon additional time to settle the account.

"We knew they weren't going to abandon their investment by sneaking out in the middle of the night," an airport staffer tells GlobeSt.com. The airline is building a new $800,000 flight-simulation center estimated at 100,000 sf and operates a 5,000-sf reservations center at the airport.

A December audit by Orlando-based accountants McDirmit, Davis and Puckett questioned how and when the debt would be repaid and how the airport could handle a default. The $300,000 represented 80% of the small airport's accounts receivable.

The debt became a larger issue after Pan Am cancelled all 16 daily flights to Sanford in December. This week, however, Fink said the airline plans to resume flying Feb. 13 and will also be expanding its service from Sanford to the Caribbean and Latin America.

Pan Am began flying into and out of Sanford in 1999. The once-rural airport is 25 miles north of Downtown Orlando. The airport is completing a $25 million expansion that includes 120,000 sf of terminal space, seven new gates and more restaurants and concession stands.

Area industrial real estate brokers who have been following the airport's expansion plans tell GlobeSt.com Dale and his staff use the right strategy in waiting for Pam Am to pay its delinquent rent.

Brokers say that although it lost revenue by Pan Am's month-long flight curtailment, the airport, at least, isn't shelling out concessions as other regional airports are doing in order to hold onto airlines flying from their hubs.

Daytona Beach International Airport is subsidizing Continental Airlines when the flights are fewer than 90% full. Melbourne International Airport, near Cape Kennedy, is offering free airport fees, customer parking and marketing assistance to any airlines that begins daily flights to a new destination.