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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.

(page 4 of 7)

A rendering of the terminal planned for the new Branson Airport.

Drawing in the Green

Back in the airport’s Adams Street office in downtown Branson, we wipe the mud from our shoes, and Bourk shows me a map of the United States depicting where Branson’s 8.4 million yearly visitors come from.

On this map, everything within driving distance is a deep dark green. The Midwest is a great green fertile stripe down the middle of the United States. Branson’s magnetic pull doesn’t begin to wane until you get north of Chicago, east of Memphis or west of Topeka, and only the Gulf of Mexico stifles it to the south.

Scattered on the coast are great green splotches centered on the great metropolitan hubs of New York; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Seattle; Washington, D.C., and others.

Of that 8.4 million, 5.4 million travel in from more than 300 miles. Fewer than 5 percent fly. The potential market is just waiting to be tapped.

This map drives everything from the size of the terminal to where they market and which airlines they are in the long process of wooing. Giving the vacation travelers in those great green splotches an affordable way to get here is the driving force behind Branson Airport.

“The airlines are excited,” Bourk says. “We are talking only to airlines that offer low fares.”

At the top of their list are airlines like Frontier, which serves the metropolises of the west coast, or AirTran, which serves the east. Southwest, with its larger reach, is another name at the top of that list.

Don’t expect to hear anything concrete about airlines until next Spring, though. Typically, airlines announce service just a few months before they begin flying the routes. This lets them leverage the press coverage into reservations on the new route. The realistic window for an announcement is three months out from the airport’s May 9, 2009, opening.

“If an airline were to announce more than six months out, that would be unprecedented,” Bourk says.
 

A Different Kind of Airport

The faces of Ali and Ken Coleman can be a common sight in Branson. Their faces smile out at you from the signs for their successful Coleman & Co. Real Estate business. Ken Coleman is also Chairman of the Board for Taney County’s Branson Regional Airport Transportation Development District.

He’s the man to educate me on the changes this airport will bring to the region. A quick side trip to his office on State Highway 248 finds him willing to share his insights on the coming changes.

Coleman says the changes this airport will bring start with the airport itself. As a private airport, they can do business in unique ways.

Coleman says that although he is on the board, he knows nothing about the airport business, and to him, it looks like the Branson Airport is moving along at a rapid pace. As the first private airport in the nation, it can get things done without bureaucracy and public approval.

“I think we’ve been a lot more efficient than a big project with a lot of government red tape,” Coleman said.

Some of that credit goes to Bourk, who has experience with every part of the new airport. Bourk says he has done it all, just never at the same time. His background has prepared him well for everything that needs doing, from the airline negotiations to paving the runway and the installation of safety equipment.