The Taney County Commission this week approved an agreement authorizing the use of $500,000 in risk abatement funds to help attract a major airline to Branson Airport.
Under the agreement approved March 23, the Branson Airport Regional Transportation Development District can utilize the funds. It also requires $1.5 million in additional risk mitigation funds to come from other sources, according to a news release. Branson Airport Executive Director Jeff Bourk this morning declined to say where the additional funding would come from.
Bourk said “several major carriers” are interested in the airport, but he declined to provide a timeline on when a new airline might come on board.
“This agreement is designed to permit our community to compete for good air service on a national level,” Bourk said in the release. “The combination of these funds will be utilized to minimize the risk to a major airline interested in starting service in Taney County.”
Under the terms of the two-year agreement, an airline that chooses Branson would refund the county for any risk mitigation funds paid.
“The county’s additional tax collections from visitor spending contributed from the air service are expected to more than offset the total amount of funds being pledged by Taney County,” Hollister City Administrator Rick Zigenfuss said in the release. “This is a good business deal.”
When Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) became a carrier at Branson Airport, the struggling, private travel facility moved into the black. In 2013, with Southwest on board, the airport recorded $3.9 million in operating income, not including depreciation or interest expenses. The airport - which cost $148 million to build - recorded $21 million in combined net operating losses during its first four years in business after opening in May 2009.
Southwest pulled its service from the airport in June after about year in operation, and in December, Frontier Airlines discontinued its service. In January, the airport inked a deal with Sanford, Fla.-based Orange Air LLC to offer three charter flights starting in May. It will become the third carrier to operate public charters through the Branson AirExpress name, along with Buzz Airways and Elite Airways, according to
Springfield Business Journal archives.
The news release pointed to a similar Boone County authorization as an example of a working agreement. In 2012, the county approved $500,000 in risk mitigation funds as part of a $3.3 million fund from public and private stakeholders to attract American Airlines to Columbia. American came on board in February 2013, and since, less than $25,000 of the risk mitigation funds have been used, officials say.[[In-content Ad]]
