FILE – In this May 8, 2015 file photo, gas station attendant Carlos Macar pumps gas in Andover, Mass. Gasoline is close to breaking below a key psychological barrier as drivers enjoy some of the cheapest pump prices since the recession. The nationwide average price of a gallon of regular Saturday, Dec. 12, 2015 was $2.02, down 58 cents from this time last year, according to auto club AAA. Experts say it could drop below $2 in the coming days. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File) 
BB&TMotorists are expected to save $1.6 billion on gasoline purchases during their year-end travels compared to last year, according to the gasoline online web site GasBuddy.com.
In its holiday travel survey, GasBuddy said 88 percent of those heading out of town will be doing so by car, with two thirds of travelers making a round trip of at least 200 miles.
GasBuddy said Chattanooga prices on Christmas Eve on Thursday averaged $1.70 per gallon and gas was priced as low as $1.61 a gallon at area Murphy and Wal-Mart stations. Nationwide, gas averaged $1.99 on Thursday.
Gas prices are at their lowest level in seven years and are down about 30 cents a gallon from last year and and $1.20 a gallon from where they were in 2012 and 2013 at Christmas.
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmasin 2008,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy. “The extra savings and cheer will certainly spread as we close out the year. There has not been a better time in years for motorists to extend their trips and travel farther, as sub-$2 per gallon gas can be found at almost 70 percent of stations in the country.”
Air service returns to Tupelo airport
TUPELO, Miss. – Commercial air service returns to Tupelo in March.
The U.S. Department of Transportation selected Corporate Flight Management to provide service in Tupelo with 30 nonstop round trips per week to Nashville International Airport. Tupelo has been without an air carrier since Oct. 27, when SeaPort Airlines prematurely ended its service following nearly year-long complaints about its poor service.
The Tupelo Airport Authority unanimously selected Smyrna, Tenn.-based CFM to provide air taxi service using nine-passenger Jetstream planes.
CFM will be paid through the federal Essential Air Service program, which said it will pay the airline nearly $4.3 million each year, starting Feb. 1, 2016 through Feb. 28, 2018.
However, Matt Chaifetz, the CEO of the airline, said it will be March before service starts. With the Christmas and New Year’s holiday approaching, many of the company’s business partners and vendors will be unavailable. He said it’s important to get all the details in order, including the schedule and marketing plans, before launching the service.
“We have the planes, we have most of the people,” he said.
Despite Fed rate hike, mortgage rates drop
WASHINGTON – What Fed rate hike?
One week after the Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates from record lows, the average on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage went the other way: It dipped to 3.96 percent from 3.97 percent last week, mortgage giant Freddie Mac says.
The drop is a reminder that the Fed has only an indirect influence on long-term mortgage rates, which more closely track the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note. And that rate, in turn, tends to stay down as long as inflation remains low and investors keep buying Treasurys. The 10-year Treasury yield has declined slightly since the Fed’s hike last week.
The 30-year mortgage rate was a bit lower a year ago – 3.83 percent. But many analysts expect it to stay historically low for months.
BB&T to acquire Pennsylvania bank
BB&T on Thursday said federal and state regulators have approved its planned acquisition of National Penn Bancshares, expanding the Winston-Salem-based bank’s presence in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey.
The $1.8 billion cash-and-stock deal is expected to close in the next few months.
Big banks such as Charlotte-based Bank of America are largely constrained from buying other banks because of restrictions on the deposit market share they can gain through acquisition. But the mid-sized BB&T has continued to rack up new acquisitions this year.
This summer, the Winston-Salem-based bank closed deals to buy Lititz, Penn.-based Susquehanna Bancshares and the The Bank of Kentucky, headquartered near Cincinnati. And this spring it bought 41 branches in Texas from New York-based Citigroup.
As of Sept. 30, Allentown, Penn.-based National Penn had $9.6 billion in assets, $7.0 billion in deposits, and 124 branches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.
“National Penn is a strategically compelling deal that complements the legacy Susquehanna franchise and presents enormous opportunities to leverage our proven community banking capabilities in these mid-Atlantic markets,” BB&T CEO Kelly King said in a statement.
In its order approving the deal, the Federal Reserve Board said BB&T would remain the 17th largest insured depository organization in the U.S. after the purchase, with total assets of $219 billion. It would control $153.5 billion in deposits, about 1.2 percent of the U.S. total.
BB&T would become the fifth largest bank by deposits in Pennsylvania, remain the fifth largest in Maryland and become the 23rd largest in New Jersey. Banks can’t expand beyond 10 percent of total U.S. deposits via acquisition, but can go over that limit through natural growth.