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Project Runway

A new, privately owned airport in Branson means big changes for you and for 417-land. Find out what's in store once this unprecedented project is complete.

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Jeff Bourk is the Branson Airport project manager, charged with having the private airport open by May 2009.

There is a growing consensus that when the airport opens, everything changes. When the changes are listed out, they pile as high as the mountain of earth moved by McAninch’s trucks.

The Branson Airport doesn’t just mean more tourists coming to the region, it means a whole new class of tourist. Upscale jet-setters are expected to snap up second homes and ring the cash registers at Branson Landing.

The airport won’t just create a few jobs on-site, it opens up whole new types of potential jobs in the area. The economic impact will not only result in more tourist and tax revenue, but wages and land prices are bound to increase while air fares in the region will likely fall.

For the developers, time-share owners and entertainers, the airport opens entire new markets. Corporate investors will see a new region for business
and corporate retreats.

As the airport links travelers to the Branson Convention Center, expect the Branson calendar to change. The dead period from December through March now becomes the season of conventions and trade shows. The town could become less seasonal.

The airport itself is something unique. This will be the first private commercial airport in the country and the first new airport in 35 years. Expect changes in the way business is done inside the airport and what you can expect when you travel.

 

Looking out over the expanse of level rock and earth, a new plateau on the Ozark landscape, I wonder what road led us to this new geography. How did this connection between the air and this land come to be?

 

The Long and Winding Road to the Sky

Branson is an American attraction. The sense of Americana just radiates from the place. It is country-living and P. T. Barnum. It is fishing and fine dining. With the addition of the Branson Convention Center and Branson Landing, it caters to commerce and our shopping obsession. It has grown naturally among the Ozarks hills, drawing in country music stars, real estate investors and immigrant showmen of all stripes right alongside the constant stream of tourists who come to Branson in greater numbers every year.

It is the end of a long road for the Branson Airport as well. The airport dreamers could be seen as just another group of anglers looking to pluck a few fish from the stream. Since the very beginning, though, these men have seen the airport as a way to widen Branson’s net. Bourk may have the job of making it a reality, but he is just one of many in a long line of developers and dreamers who saw the vision of what an airport could mean to the area.
The road to the sky started as a trail, a mere dream of regional developer Glenn Patch. Patch owned a great number of acres around Branson including the former ranch of Tennessee Ernie Ford. Patch knew an airport would be good for business and good for the value of his land. He put 922 acres up for the airport to get the ball rolling.

Aviation Facilities Company, Inc. was the next aboard in 2000. AFCO saw the potential for building, servicing and operating the airport, and that’s how Steve Peet came into the picture. Peet may be the first person outside of Branson to really get it. A New York bond trader, Peet flew down in 2003 from his home in New Canaan, Connecticut, to see how AFCO’s investment was doing. What he saw changed his perspective on Branson and the airport’s potential. Now he is CEO and President of Branson Airport LLC.