Fort Smith airport may be only gainer for 2011
by January 16, 2012 9:21 am 77 views
This could be unusual.
Barring an unusual flurry of activity during December at the Little Rock National Airport, the Fort Smith Regional Airport will be the only airport among the three largest commercial airfields in Arkansas to post an enplanement gain during 2011.
Enplanements at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA) totaled 561,271 during 2011, down 1.64% compared to 2010. December enplanements at the airport were 42,580, down from 46,261 during December 2010.
Traffic at XNA has fallen since June, when year-to-date traffic for the first half of the year was up almost 4% compared to the 2010 period. During 2010, XNA had 570,625 enplanements, up 5.49% over 2009.
XNA’s first full year of traffic was 1999, and the airport posted eight consecutive years of enplanement gains before seeing a decline in 2008.
Enplanements at the Fort Smith Regional Airport during 2011 eked out a 0.12% gain over 2010, marking two consecutive years of enplanement growth at the airport. The airport ended the year with a December that saw 7,240 enplanements, up 3.3% compared to December 2010. For the year, the airport posted 86,234 enplanements compared to 86,129 during 2010.
For the first 11 months of 2011, enplanements at Little Rock National totaled 1.011 million, down 2.15% compared to the 2010 period. If the 2011 numbers are down compared to 2010, it will be the fifth consecutive year of declining enplanements at Arkansas’ largest commercial airport.
The most recent report (released Dec. 8) from the U.S. Department of Transportation shows that U.S. airlines carried 480.5 million domestic passengers, up 1.8% from 2010 Internationally, they carried 71.3 million passengers, up 2.7% from 2010.