It feels like an odd pairing.  DFW to the new Branson, MO airport on Sun Country which is a Minneapolis / St. Paul based airline.  Well, maybe.  maybe not.

First, Branson has a new airport about to open.  It is unique in that it is a private airport built with private money.  You can view its website HERE.  Or, rather, you can kind of view it.  It really isn’t working very well as a website.  Not today anyway.

Second, it does kind of make sense.  Sun Country will be flying Mon-Wed-Fri from MSP to Branson.  Then, it appears, it will use the same aircraft to fly the DFW / Branson segments as well.  That means high utilization for the aircraft.  From what I can see, the flight will travel MSP to Branson, Branson to DFW, DFW to Branson, Branson to MSP on those days. 

Sun Country already flies in and out of DFW (and not just to MSP) and already understands how to fly to leisure destinations.   There should be enough traffic from both the DFW and MSP areas to feed to Branson (a kind of mid-western Las Vegas show theatre town if you are unfamiliar with it) and it should be able to do so very competitively against the bus excursions that already exist.  You see, there was no close by airport for Branson until now.  Previously, it means flying very expensive commuter flights to places such as Joplin, Fort Smith, Springfield or Fayetteville and you *still* had at least a 2 hour drive by bus or car to get there.

Not anymore.  These flights should do well and I will note that AirTran is another airline that will be flying to this new destination and Sun Country also has just added flights from Boston to Branson (I’m a little skeptical of that one being successful.)  Branson is offering incentives to these airlines to start these flights in the hopes of jump starting more growth of their tourism industry.    So far, you have to give them high marks for targeting the right kind of areas and the right kind of airlines.  If they had asked American Airlines to serve the destination, it would have been done with old regional jet aircraft and at high prices.  Instead, they picked airlines that understood the leisure business.  I would not be surprised to learn of Allegiant starting flights into Branson as well.

What’s more, it will be done with mainline aircraft such as the Boeing 737, 717 and, if Allegiant jumps into the game, the MD-80.  All aircraft much more suited to the demographics of the typical Branson traveler.

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