American Eagle May Take Flight Nov. 14

Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Attempts November 1 Opening

American Eagle has targeted Nov. 14 as the date to have all of its Dallas-Fort Worth flights from Fayetteville’s Drake Field moved to the new Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport.

That is, if the $107.6 million project 30 miles north, at Highfill, is ready on time.

“We’re ready when they’re ready,” says Gary Foss, planning director for the American Airlines subsidiary. “Contingent upon the airport being ready to go, we’ll be ready on Nov. 1 to start three round trips a day to Chicago with our new 50-seat, Embraer 145 jets.

“Then we’ll start phasing our Dallas-Fort Worth operation over. We’ll start moving maybe two round trips to Dallas, then three and so on according to how quickly our assets may be moved.”

Scott Van Laningham, a member of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Authority, says construction is on schedule. The new airport, whose FAA designation is XNA, is supposed to have all public areas, including airline ticketing, baggage claim and restrooms, ready on Nov. 1.

“There will be a few punch-list items to be finished after that,” Van Laningham says. “For example, some administrative offices in the terminal building will not be done. But we have every reason to believe we will be operational and ready for passengers on that date.”

Van Laningham believes the airfield may even be ready to accommodate some of the University of Arkansas football team’s charter flights by mid-October. UA Director of Athletic Training Dean Weber books the Razorbacks’ football flights and says it will be the choice of their charter service, Berry Aviation Inc. of San Marcos, Texas.

“As of this week, it’s still in the talking phase,” Weber says. “Our trips for the first part of the year will continue through Drake. But I have a feeling once the new airport is open [Berry] we’ll probably opt to fly out of there.”

The lingering question is whether the four other carriers operating at Drake — Northwest Airlink, Trans World Express, Air Midwest and Atlantic Southeast Airlines — will make the switch.

TWE, a subsidiary of Trans World Airlines Inc., plans to reevaluate its status in late November. The other three airlines say they’ll continue to monitor the local market indefinitely. A 30-day notice is all that is required to leave Drake.

“Trying to guess what any airline is going to do tomorrow is like playing the one-armed bandits,” says Dale Frederick, Drake Field’s airport manager. “What we have tried to do is plan a scenario that will fit closely to whatever happens in the unforeseeable future.”

Head-to-Head

Both airports have prepared for the worst. Sentiment is that the loss of American Eagle, which last year comprised 42 percent of Drake’s traffic or around 100,000 enplanements, was the beginning of the end for the Fayetteville airport, at least on a commercial scale.

But Van Laningham says the airport authority is taking nothing for granted. The first year of the new airport is still being considered a “transitional period.” Van Laningham says the authority is projecting roughly 200,000 enplanements — the number of people who get on an airplane — based on feasibility studies.

If additional airlines move to the new airport, projections estimate an average of 325,000 enplanements by 2000. But what if Drake’s carriers don’t move?

“Then you have to look at cutting operating costs and doing whatever you have to do to keep the airport open,” Van Laningham says. “We don’t think that’s going to be a problem though. If there’s the demand we think there’s going to be, American could just bring in additional flights to accommodate as many passengers as need be.”

Two years ago, Drake Field commissioned URS Greiner of Fort Worth to do a $300,000 study and formulate its master plan. Three scenarios were considered, including no loss of service for the Fay-

etteville municipal airport, partial loss of service or a total loss to the new airport.

Greiner did not return phone calls to Arkansas Business, but the company is apparently planning to present to the Fay-

etteville City Council soon its plan for dealing with only a partial loss of service.

“The planners feel very confident we’re going to have only a partial loss,” Frederick says. “They’re predicting we could have a decrease by as much as 100,000 enplanements this year, but due to community growth and facility improvements we’ll be back up to our present rate and need an addition to our terminal building.”

Drake’s planned facility improvements will include adding 10,000 SF to its current 270,000-SF terminal building by 2000, more parking and better access roads.

Cash Flow

The new airport lured American Eagle with a lucrative contract. Original cost estimates for the airport put air carriers’ cost per enplanement at more than $9. That number is back down to $3 thanks to special breaks given to American Eagle by the airport authority.

The airline will be reimbursed $423,360 for relocation and advertising costs. Other short-term incentives include breaks on landing and rental costs.

Van Laningham says other airlines could expect the same kind of deal if they decide to move.

“We learned with American you can get very close on a deal like this and it will still take a matter of weeks to fall together,” Van Laningham says. “We remain hopeful other carriers are going to want to come in, and the deal would be roughly the same for any one of them that did.”

The airport, which has received four FAA trust fund grants totaling $70 million, is projecting revenue of $3.8 million for next year. Additional private financing includes revenue bonds totaling $79.5 million that were underwritten by Llama Co. and sold last year.

The airport recently caught a break from the city of Bentonville, which made a deal that will immediately fund the airport’s northbound, two-lane road to state Highway 12. The $1.6 million road construction cost was a tradeoff for the airport’s future rights to tap fees along its $4 million water and sewer line into Bentonville.

The airport will be connected to U.S. Highway 71 from the south via a $15 million intermodal connector that 3rd District U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson helped get attached to the Federal Highway Bill.

The connector will begin in the area of Wagon Wheel Road and run between Cave Springs and Elm Springs.

“We’re a bigger, better, safer airport in a more central location to Northwest Arkansas,” Van Laningham says. “And because more than 60 businesses and industries throughout Washington and Benton counties have pledged their support to the new airport, we believe our facility is going to be an attractive one for additional airlines.”

The only area where the airport has not had great fund-raising success is for its grand opening ceremony to which President Clinton has been invited.

Mailed solicitations have produced only $1,800 of an expected $100,000 in donations. Blackwood Martin/CJRW was hired in July to promote the event.