April activity down 11.7% at Fort Smith Regional Airport

Activity at the Fort Smith Regional Airport reversed course during April, sending enplanements down 11.7% for the month. However, enplanements for the first four months of 2011 are up 1.4%.

Enplanements at the airport during April totaled 6,146, down from the 6,964 in April 2010. Year-to-date, enplanements total 24,820, up 1.44% compared to the 2010 period. Year-to-date enplanements were up 6.7% at the end of the March.

Enplanements at the airport totaled 86,129 during 2010, up 9.81% over 2009 — an increase that ended two consecutive years of enplanement declines at the airport. Enplanements in 2009 at the Fort Smith airport totaled 78,432, down 9.8% from the 87,030 enplanements in 2008. Passenger enplanements at the Fort Smith Regional Airport totaled 87,030 in 2008, down 12.2% from the 99,127 enplanements in 2007. The 2009 traffic total was the lowest at the airport in the past 10 years.

Delta, flying passengers to and from its Memphis hub, continues to see increases in passengers out of Fort Smith. For the first four months of 2011, Delta enplanements out of Fort Smith total 10,685, up 29.6% compared to the 2010 period.

Year-to-date, Delta reports 7.494 million passengers in its domestic regional system, down 4.2% compared to the 2010 period.

American Airlines (American Eagle), which connects Fort Smith travelers to Dallas-Fort Worth, had 14,135 enplanements out of Fort Smith during the first four months of 2011, down 12.89% compared to the 2010 period.

American Eagle reported 5.161 million passenger boardings during the first four months of 2011, up 2.9% compared to the 2010 period.

Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA) also is recovering from two years of consecutive declines. For 2010, the airport had 570,625 enplanements, up 5.49% over 2009.

Enplanements for the first quarter of 2011 total 128.132, up 5.97% compared to the 2010 period. (As of May 9, XNA did not have enplanement figures for April.)

The airlines continue to worry about the rising price of fuel on recent growth in the number of airline travelers and industry revenue.

“Higher levels of spending on air travel in March are a solid indicator of expanding economies in the United States and abroad. However, the revenue growth experienced in the first quarter has not been sufficient to keep pace with higher jet fuel costs, which have risen more than 30 percent from a year ago. The airline industry remains concerned about a possible slowdown in demand induced by rising energy prices across the economy,” ATA Vice President and Chief Economist John Heimlich recently said.

Heimlich said a sustained $3 per gallon jet fuel price for all of 2011 would add $15 billion to the industry’s fuel bill  — almost double the $39 billion in fuel costs for all of 2010.

In his report on jet fuel prices, Heimlich noted: “Annually, a 1 cent increase in a gallon costs U.S. airlines $175 million; a $1 increase in a barrel costs them $415 million. To put this into some context, in 2010, U.S. airlines posted an estimated net profit of $3 billion with a meager 2 percent margin, one of only three profitable years in the entire decade. From 2001-2010, U.S. airlines had a cumulative net loss of approximately $54 billion.”

ENPLANEMENT HISTORY (Fort Smith Regional Airport, since 2000)
2010: 86,129
2009: 78,432
2008: 87,030
2007: 99,127
2006: 94,717
2005: 102,607
2004: 92,928
2003: 90,493
2002: 87,944
2001: 95,419
2000: 104,182