Fort Smith airport sees enplanement gain in 2017

Fort Smith Regional Airport enplanements were up for the second straight year in 2017. Enplanements totaled 89,582 in 2017, up 2.4% from 87,488 in 2016. December enplanements totaled 7,173, down 1.2% from 7,216 in December 2016.

Fort Smith enplanements were 87,488 in 2016, up only marginally compared to 86,704 enplanements in 2015. Fort Smith’s 2015 enplanement totals were down 7.1% compared to 2014. The 2014 traffic was 92,869, the first time the airport had topped the 90,000 mark since 2007.

XNA, LITTLE ROCK TRAFFIC
Enplanements — or outbound passengers — at the state’s second-largest airport, Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA) in Highfill, jumped for the sixth consecutive year to a record 725,284. That’s an increase of 3.66% from the previous record total of 699,487 in 2016. XNA”s first full year of traffic was 1999, and the airport posted eight consecutive years of enplanements gains before seeing a decline in 2008. There was also a decline from 2010 to 2011 before the current streak of gains for six consecutive years.

December enplanements totaled 57,224 at XNA, down 7.8% from November and a dip of 1.7% from December 2016.

After staying below the 1 million mark for two years, enplanements at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock rose to 1.01 million in 2017. That’s up 2.02% compared to 996,897 in 2016. December enplanements were 82,654, up slightly (1.17%) from the same month in 2016.

2015 and 2016 were the first two years since 1991 that enplanements at the state’s largest airport were below 1 million.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, enplanements on all U.S. carriers (including domestic and international traffic) in October — the most recent federal data available — reached a new seasonally adjusted all-time high of 72.2 million, up 0.7% from the previous high of July 2017 (71.62 million

ENPLANEMENT HISTORY
Clinton National Airport-Little Rock
2017: 1.017 million
2016: 996,897
2015: 992,712
2014: 1.038 million
2013: 1.085 million
2012: 1.147 million
2011: 1.103 million
2010: 1.124 million

Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport-Highfill
2017: 725,284
2016: 699,672
2015: 649,741
2014: 640,537
2013: 581,487
2012: 565,045
2011: 562,747
2010: 570,625

Fort Smith Regional Airport
2017: 89,582
2016: 87,488
2015: 86,704
2014: 92,869
2013: 84,520
2012: 86,653
2011: 86,234
2010: 86,129
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Editor’s note: This report was part of the most recent Arkansas Transportation Report.