Northwest Arkansas National Airport


Northwest Arkansas National Airport is in Northwest Arkansas in Highfill, Arkansas, northwest of Fayetteville and northwest of Springdale. It is often referred to by its IATA code, which is incorporated in the airport's logo as "Fly XNA".
It sees year-round, daily nonstop jets to major cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco and Washington D.C., largely due to the presence of the world's largest company by revenue, Walmart, in nearby Bentonville.
Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 547,871 passenger boardings in calendar year 2008, 530,087 in 2009 and 549,195 in 2010. It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2019–2023, in which it is categorized as a small-hub primary commercial service facility.

History

XNA opened in November 1998 and airlines moved to it from Fayetteville's Drake Field, which was too small for the growing region.

Expansion

In 2007 airport officials announced the construction of a new concourse costing between $20–$25 million. The new concourse is east of the upper concourse, allowing the airport to board eight more planes. The airport previously had 12 airplane parking positions. It took over three years to complete.
The airport completed a ticket counter expansion in 2010. The airport has completed a $21 million expansion to the upper-level concourse that includes the state's first moving walkway. With the walkway, it is anticipated to take about three minutes to get from security to the last gate. The addition adds and 12 upper-level gates to the east side of the airport.
The airport was previously known as Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. It adopted the name Northwest Arkansas National Airport in December 2019. Airport officials attributed the change to perception, saying that the new name would help attract more airline service.

Runway

The original runway built in 1998 required complete reconstruction in 2011 following the discovery of alkali-silica reaction in the Portland cement concrete runway. Since the runway was the only one at the airport, a temporary runway was necessary to maintain service during reconstruction. Stimulus funds of $9 million from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act allowed XNA to accelerate the alternative runway construction project. Upon completion of the alternate runway in 2012, all aircraft operations were shifted to the new surface and demolition and replacement of the primary runway began.

Facilities

The airport covers 2,184 acres at an elevation of 1,287 feet. It has two runways, 16/34 and 17/35, each 8,800 by 150 feet long.
In 2016, the airport had 41,567 aircraft operations, average 114 per day: 42% airline, 29% air taxi, 17% military, and 11% general aviation. In April 2020, 8 aircraft were based at the airport: 1 single-engine, 3 multi-engine, and 4 jet.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

Statistics

Top destinations

Annual traffic