Gulf Shores International Airport at Jack Edwards Field — Local services in Gulf Shores

We were on the inaugural flight from Gulf Shores to Knoxville on Allegiant. With the amount of emails we received, you’d think it was a big deal. Well… they told us to be there 3 hours early. I didn’t stutter. For 34 people. Yeah. We had little parking due to the airport having a local shindig for big wigs from 12-2. The park mobile app is a joke. No one there knew how to work it either. By the time we got there at 1:30 , all of the tshirts, bottles of wine and most of the food was gone. Although, the lady in pink was spied sharing a whole bag of tshirts with an airport employee after we were told they were gone? Anyway. No fanfare for the actual passengers that paid for the flight. So we waited…and waited. We were all there. Turns out they didn’t count the child that an extra ticket was bought for or we could have left 2 hours earlier? I digress. We were the first to go to through TSA. They kept telling us our boarding passes were wrong and we were at the wrong airport. They hadn’t changed the call letters for the airport on the passport scanner. Next, my husband was asked to take out his sleep machine and put it in a nasty bin. Mind you. We are TSA precheck. The person training caught that. So we endure that and now sit and wait until 5 something. With the vending machines. No fanfare here. No electric hooked up yet to charge phones except for one outlet on the wall. Thankfully the one manager had brought a sandwich out for a woman that skipped lunch. And also some hats and keychains from the gift shop. But again no fanfare. Very disappointing that we were neglected. Nothing in Knoxville either. Not even a hello! Saw the balloons they used for the newscasters but nothing for the paying customers. The pilot was great and so were most of the staff that were flown in for the opening. There clearly was no trial run through. Heaven help them after the auxiliary staff leaves. Must have been 50 official types there and no one thought to do a trial run through TSA??? Or actually thank the passengers;not the Chamber of Commerce members who were there for the free food, T shirts and booze? Poor form, GUF and Allegiant. Disappointing...

First time using this airport. Easy parking. They use the MobilePark app and only allow max of two weeks parking. Daily parking is $10 , with weekly being $60. Parking lot is less than 50 yards from the front door, only carrier operating out of the airport is allegiant, the TSA only has metal detectors, they do not have the scanners Metal detectors are set to be very sensitive, out of 10 people I observed two or three requiring a pat down. Regardless of whether you were TSA approved or not. I’m TSA approved, and still was required to takeoff my shoes, takeoff my belt, and a full pat down !! There are only two gates, with seating for roughly 200 people . No food or delivery service, only...

As a local I was very excited to have the airport so close to home and not having to go to P-Cola. I am disappointed that there are not more flights offered to the West! At one point Houston was a leg and now it has been removed. I was going to book a flight and saw it is no longer offered. So as much as I would love to utilize our airport have no use for the destinations offered. I hope to soon see other airlines coming in or more...