Fort Smith Regional Airport enplanements down through October

Enplanements at the Fort Smith Regional Airport totaled 50,821 between January and October, down 2.15% compared with the same period in 2022. Barring robust November and December numbers, the trend will end two years of post-pandemic gains.

The airport continues to face difficulty attracting more flights and new routes. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines stopped its Fort Smith flights in July 2020 and has yet to restart the direct service to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. American Airlines, the only carrier active at Fort Smith, had four to five flights a day in 2021 and part of 2022, but has for most of 2023 reduced its schedule to two or three flights a day between Fort Smith and Dallas-Fort Worth.

The airport received a $1.145 million grant from the Small Community Air Service Development Program of the Federal Aviation Administration to recruit a route to Chicago or another northeastern market. The grant is good for 10 years. The airport has contracted with Middleton, Wisc.-based Mead & Hunt to add flights and new markets.

Enplanements began the year on a positive note, with a 3.3% increase in the first three months after a rebound in 2022. The airport reported 61,719 enplanements in 2022, up 30.5% compared with the 47,287 in 2021. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that U.S. enplanements totaled 853 million in 2022, up 30% compared with 2021, and well above the 388 million in 2020.

There were 826,857 enplanements at the Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) through October, up 18.8% compared with the same period in 2022. The Clinton National Airport in Little Rock had 929,171 enplanements through October, up 11.2% compared with the same period in 2022. U.S. airline traffic in August – the most recent U.S. Department of Transportation data available – was up 8.4% compared with August 2022.

Fort Smith enplanements were on a growth trend prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The last time enplanements topped 100,000 was in 2005 with 102,607. The enplanement record is 112,782 set in 1975. Following are the previous 10 years of enplanement totals.
2022: 61,719
2021: 47,287
2020: 38,660
2019: 95,670
2018: 90,501
2017: 89,582
2016: 87,488
2015: 86,704
2014: 92,869