XNA officials expect traffic to hit new high in May; Highfill detachment case proceeds

Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) in Highfill anticipates continued growth in enplanements, potentially reaching a new monthly record in May, as the airport still seeks to detach from the city. Enplanements comprise passengers flying out.

On Tuesday (June 3), the XNA Board of Directors rejected a settlement offer from Highfill and rescinded its previous settlement offer after officials thought they’d reached an agreement in March. However, city and airport officials approved different offers.

XNA officials agreed that they didn’t want to keep the settlement offer on the table and voted to withdraw it. Officials said this doesn’t mean a new offer can’t be reached and viewed the city’s approval of Highfill’s offer as a rejection of XNA’s offer.

According to XNA, its offer would allow Highfill to have $900,000 annually in discretionary money. Highfill’s offer would result in about $1.5 million annually in discretionary money.

Brian Burke, general counsel and director of compliance for XNA, said Highfill’s offer would delay the timeline to pay off the city’s bonds and the savings that XNA passengers would see from a reduction in sales tax.

XNA officials previously said that once the city’s existing bonds are paid, the airport will no longer have to pay sales tax on its parking revenue or collect the city’s 2% sales tax on purchases made by XNA’s passengers and guests or the 4% tax for rental cars. The city’s bonds will still take years to pay off.

Separately, XNA is suing city officials, including the mayor and an alderman, to require them to allocate the city’s sales tax revenue to pay for the bonds in accordance with state law. Act 769 of 2023 restricts how a city can use its sales tax revenue after a petition to detach is filed. XNA filed the petition to detach in Benton County Court on Oct. 4, 2024. Officials previously said the 2023 law requires that all sales tax money must be allocated for paying off the city’s existing bonds once a detachment petition is filed. A hearing on XNA’s case is set for June 26-27, but Highfill has filed an appeal.

ENPLANEMENTS
XNA CEO Aaron Burkes said enplanements continue to rise, with May expected to be a record month for the airport. XNA will receive May enplanements in about two weeks, but projected a “conservative number” of 113,840, which would be a record high. And Burkes said May isn’t the airport’s strongest month. June, July and October were the strongest last year.

“Off to a really terrific start in terms of where we are in enplanements,” Burkes said.

He declined to provide a 2025 forecast for enplanements, but noted that if one were to “extrapolate out” the existing growth rate so far this year, the 2025 enplanement number would be 1.29 million. XNA previously budgeted 1.05 million for the year.

“We typically budget fairly conservatively,” he said. “Those numbers, again, are blowing us away.”

From January to April, enplanements increased by 12.08% to 355,525 from 317,191 in the same period in 2024. In April, enplanements rose by 8.94% to 97,533 from 89,524 in the same month last year.

BUSIEST ARKANSAS AIRPORT
By comparison, enplanements at Clinton National Airport in Little Rock fell by 1.46% to 329,687 from 334,575. In April, enplanements decreased by 5.64% to 89,773 from 95,139 in the same month last year. XNA’s enplanements have exceeded those of Clinton National Airport since September.

Based on the past 12 months of enplanements, XNA has 1.18 million enplanements, or 1.3% more than Clinton National Airport’s 1.16 million. According to XNA, it’s “now the largest airport in Arkansas.”

Burkes said, “We knew this would happen,” and that he’d noted in a letter in support of funding for the airport’s access road that he projected it to occur by 2025.

“We want Little Rock to do well,” he said. “They’re our sister airport. We work cooperatively with them. We don’t really compete with Little Rock very much… It is a friendly rivalry.”

Enplanements at Fort Smith Regional Airport, the state’s third-largest commercial airport, decreased by 4.4% to 17,921 in the first four months of 2025 from 18,745 in the same period in 2024. In April, enplanements declined by 11.4% to 4,487 from 5,063 in April 2024.

Burkes said airfare prices are becoming more similar to peer airports, and XNA is capturing more of its market share than in past years. Tulsa International Airport captured 20.2% of XNA’s market share in 2017, but that percentage has fallen to 7.1% as of the fourth quarter of 2024. The average round-trip airfare is $471 or $20 higher at XNA compared to Tulsa. It was more than $150 higher in 2018.

The gap is also narrowing with enplanements. Tulsa’s enplanements were 64% higher than those at XNA in January 2023. As of February 2025, Tulsa’s enplanements were 24% higher than those at XNA. Tulsa’s enplanements increased by 3.5% to 1.62 million in 2024 from 2023. Over the same period, XNA’s rose by 15.5% to 1.14 million.