Traffic down more than 11% at the Fort Smith Regional Airport

Commercial traffic out of the Fort Smith Regional Airport continues to move in the wrong direction, with April enplanements down more than 11% compared with April 2024.

April enplanements totaled 4,487, according to the airport report, down 11.4% compared with 5,063 in April 2024.

Airport enplanements for the first four months of 2025 total 17,921, down 4.4% compared with 18,745 in the same period of 2024. Traffic was down just 1.8% through the first quarter, with April’s decline pushing the year-over-year percentage decline higher.

U.S. domestic and international enplanements were down 4.6% through February, the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Airlines for America, the trade group for commercial airlines, reported May 24 that demand for travel remains “healthy,” but airlines are reporting a “slowdown in domestic main cabin bookings.”

The report also noted that airlines have reduced the number of regional jets available for airports like Fort Smith. While overall commercial jet numbers are up 277 from pre-pandemic levels, the regional jet numbers are down around 60%.

ENPLANEMENT, SERVICE HISTORY
Enplanements at the airport in 2024 totaled 61,409, up 1.2% compared with the 60,669 enplanements in 2023. The 2024 tally is down 35.8% compared with 2019 when those traveling out of the airport totaled 95,670. Enplanements fell to 38,660 in 2020.

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.

American Airlines had four to five flights a day in 2021 but has reduced its schedule to three flights a day. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines stopped its direct service to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in July 2020.

The airport received a $1.145 million grant in August 2022 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.

Following are the previous 11 years of Fort Smith enplanement totals.
2024: 61,409
2023: 60,669
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