Landing at Branson, MO's BKG airport.
Branson, Missouri is the home to the United State’s first privately supported airport. The $155 million airport is the first of 552 airports with commercial air service to receive no federal funding.
The town only has about 6,000 residents, but has over 50 theaters, ten museums, and a few other odds and ends that draw about 8million tourists to the area each year.
In 1996 Congress changed legislation that allowed airports to try and win over private investors and Branson will show if this is a feasible business plan. SO far two other airports have unsuccessfully tried to make airport privatization work (Midway Airport and Steward Airport). Currently only low-cost carriers Sun Country Airlines and AirTran Airways fly into Branson Airport (BKG).
There seems to be a lot of money making potential in airports (selling name rights, hotels, shops, restraunts, business deals, etc) and although airports around the globe have made leaps and bounds as far as amenities avliable, I wonder what new ideas a privatly-held, purely profit driven, airport can come up with.
Source: Dallas News Image: FlyBranson.com
I’m interested to see the follow-up on this. If this one’s financially sucessful – I wonder how many others will follow