Things in the Sky

Branson Airport in Missouri is very interesting to watch, as it is the first privately-funded airport here in the United States. For some background, take a look at this post from Brett Snyder.

Sun Country recently announced that it will begin nonstop service to Branson from Dallas (DFW) and Minneapolis on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, starting in May (the airport has yet to open). (For some reason, two press releases were needed.)

I’m guessing here, but by looking at the schedule in the press releases it seems that one aircraft will fly MSP-BKG-DFW-BKG-MSP, and during the Saturday summer flights one plane will do the DFW one and another will do the MSP route.

It’s kind of hard for me to analyze the routes, as, well, Branson is a new airport. But I was able to find DOT Data for the second quarter of 2008 for the closest airport, Springfield-Branson (SGF). Here are the top ten markets (ranked by average daily passengers) for that market (after I combined the passenger count for Orlando and Sanford):

So, Dallas an Minneapolis are in the top ten. There might not be enough for a daily 737-800 from Sun Country, but I think three flights a week could work. I wonder if Sun Country is hoping to get some MSP-DFW traffic on the route to fill some seats, as their website will allow you to book that trip with a quick stop in Branson.

As for AirTran, Atlanta is one of the largest markets, and Milwaukee is near the bottom of the list with only 12 average passengers a day. But this data is just for O&D (origin and destination) traffic, and AirTran’s ATL and MKE flights allow for connections to a good number of markets.

Another thing worthy of note is that the top three markets (Vegas, Sanford, and Tampa) have Allegiant as their largest carrier. If Branson can convince Allegiant to move over from Springfield, that could give the airport a nice boost.

Overall, though, it seems that Branson is off to a good start. Yes, it only has two carriers, but based on this rendering from the airport website, it doesn’t look like the airport is expecting a great deal of traffic with only four parking spots in front of the terminal.

It’ll be interesting to see how AirTran and Sun Country do in this new market. If they’re successful, I wouldn’t be surprised if some legacies decided to send a few RJs to Branson as well.