XNA looks to surpass 1 million enplanements in 2024
by March 5, 2024 3:56 pm 1,041 views
Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) in Highfill is on track to exceed 1 million enplanements this year if it maintains its current trajectory.
CEO Aaron Burkes discussed the key airport metric in the XNA Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday (March 5).
“Big picture, things are going really great,” Burkes said. “Our enplanement picture of the business is pretty phenomenal honestly.”
January enplanements, or passengers flying out, exceeded those in the same month in 2019 and 2023. Both were record-setting years. In January, enplanements rose by 13.4% to a record 70,716 from 62,354 in the same month in 2023. Enplanements were up by 24.9% from January 2019. XNA officials have benchmarked enplanements to 2019, which was the record enplanement year until last year. In 2023, enplanements were 991,489, up 7.5% from 922,533 in 2019.
“Look at that January number…up 25% from 2019 numbers,” Burkes said. “Huge numbers.” He noted that looking at the 12-month period from February 2023 to January 2024, XNA is at 1 million enplanements.
“If we can just keep on this trend, we will clearly hit 1 million,” he added. “A million seems like an easy goal, honestly. But that’s assuming things stay status quo.”
Burkes said XNA has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and is about or slightly below where it would have been if the pandemic had not happened. He said some airlines were reporting business travel still being down about 15%, but XNA has fully recovered to its pre-pandemic levels of business travel.
XNA has nonstop flights to 22 U.S. airports. Burkes said Delta Air Lines recently added a nonstop flight to LaGuardia Airport in New York that starts April 15. Weekly, XNA has 60 outbound flights to Dallas, 36 to Chicago, 28 to Charlotte, N.C., 27 to Atlanta, 24 to Denver and 21 to Houston. For the week of March 3, XNA has a total of 258 outbound flights. Airlines include Allegiant, American Airlines, Breeze, Delta, Frontier Airlines and United Airlines.
Burkes also highlighted the “healthy competition” between Northwest Arkansas and central Arkansas and cited a 6% difference in January enplanements between XNA and Clinton National Airport in Little Rock. The enplanement difference was about 13% in 2023. Before the pandemic, the difference was more than 30%.
“We’re narrowing that gap,” Burkes said. “They do have Southwest [Airlines], so that’s obviously a big difference — something that they have that we want.”
In January, enplanements at Clinton National Airport rose by 1.4% to 74,637 from 73,608 in the same month in 2023. For 2023, enplanements rose by 10.87% to 1.12 million from 1.01 million in 2022. Clinton National Airport is the largest commercial airport in Arkansas.
Fort Smith Regional Airport is the state’s third-largest commercial airport after XNA. In January, enplanements at Fort Smith Regional Airport decreased by 4.29% to 4,012 from 4,192 in the same month in 2023. Airport director Michael Griffin attributed the January decline to multiple cancellations because of winter weather. For 2023, enplanements fell by 1.7% to 60,669 from 61,719 in 2022.
Burkes said the airport that XNA loses the most passengers to is Tulsa International Airport. He cited a recent report that shows the share of passengers in XNA’s market extends from northeastern Oklahoma to east of Harrison and from southwestern Missouri to the Fort Smith metro. The report shows XNA captures 67.9% of its market, down from 74.7% in 2021 but up from 65.9% in 2018.
Following is how much market share other airports capture:
- Tulsa International Airport, 14.5%
- Kansas City International Airport, 5.6%
- Springfield-Branson National Airport, 3.7%
- Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, 3.5%
- Clinton National Airport, 2%
- Fort Smith Regional Airport, 1.4%.
Andrew Branch, chief operating officer for XNA, questioned the report’s accuracy when taking into account XNA’s continued enplanement growth. Burkes noted the report didn’t include flights for low-cost carriers, which might account for the difference. The carriers accounted for 7.8% of outbound passengers in 2019. The share rose to 19.1% as of the third quarter of 2023.
“We think that’s the bulk of the difference,” Burkes said.
He explained that those who leave the market for one of XNA’s competitors will likely fly on Southwest Airlines. The airline comprises more than 40% of enplanements for Tulsa International and Kansas City International airports. American Airlines comprises about half of XNA’s enplanements.