Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA)

[TRB]

That's why I said as a bunny hop on a route between two cities that may need a little help on numbers. That's why I said something like DEN and MEM. XNA is practically directly under the flight path. Den would give the connections to the other western cities that Frontier serves and Memphis would re-establish a regional link for folks possibly even add enough to turn a seasonal route that Frontier runs like the Dulles from there to a permanent route. That's all just thinking out loud from me.

Edited October 27, 2014 by TRB

[jb1087]

That's why I said as a bunny hop on a route between two cities that may need a little help on numbers. That's why I said something like DEN and MEM. XNA is practically directly under the flight path. Den would give the connections to the other western cities that Frontier serves and Memphis would re-establish a regional link for folks possibly even add enough to turn a seasonal route that Frontier runs like the Dulles from there to a permanent route. That's all just thinking out loud from me.

It's an interesting thought.  It'd just have to be connected to another airport that didn't have a better option.

On a side note, Frontier is suspending its service to Little Rock until further notice (right now that notice is supposedly their second quarter).  Not too great of news for Little Rock, as supposedly Southwest has reduced service as well with the ending of the Wright Amendment.  Second time that Frontier has come and gone in the last 10 years or so.

Edited October 29, 2014 by jb1087

[theman]

Frontier is reducing or temporarily suspending service at several airports around the country. They just announced that they are going to temporarily suspend service between Memphis and Washington, DC from January 5 until April 15. And this is happening as they are ramping up service to other cities from Memphis.  The fact that Southwest is now in Memphis has definitely hurt the passenger numbers at Clinton/LR National. LR still has direct service to Denver on United so Frontier temporarily suspending service won't effect people who want to get there. Southwest cut the one nonstop it had from LR to Houston and a couple of LR to Dallas flights.  Again LR has nonstop service to Houston on United and still has several nonstops to Dallas on Southwest and American. 

[jb1087]

Frontier is reducing or temporarily suspending service at several airports around the country. They just announced that they are going to temporarily suspend service between Memphis and Washington, DC from January 5 until April 15. And this is happening as they are ramping up service to other cities from Memphis.  The fact that Southwest is now in Memphis has definitely hurt the passenger numbers at Clinton/LR National. LR still has direct service to Denver on United so Frontier temporarily suspending service won't effect people who want to get there. Southwest cut the one nonstop it had from LR to Houston and a couple of LR to Dallas flights.  Again LR has nonstop service to Houston on United and still has several nonstops to Dallas on Southwest and American. 

I did hear about them suspending service on several routes.  I don't know how well it speaks to LIT to have the airline completely gone for several months (though that may be more of a question of Frontier's business logic, who knows).  I do think Frontier is a much more reasonable expectation than Southwest for XNA though.

[TRB]

Southwest is announcing a bunch of changes on Nov 11th, or so I read.

 

Frontier and IAD is much discussed on the aviation boards. Memphis is supposed to go back online in April. Seems this route is dependent on the tourism sector and with the shift to an O and D airport, that makes sense. They may add more flights that are seasonal in nature from Memphis. They jumped all over the Dallas route when Southwest didn't give Memphis a Love Field direct. Southwest moving in to Memphis has everything to do with LR's plummeting numbers along with the death of the Wright Amendment.

 

What's interesting to me is little ol' Seaport that services little airports under the Essential Air Service with their little 9 seat Caravans. You can fly nonstop from Harrison to Memphis or Kansas City for under 150 roundtrip if booked far enough out and you aren't scared of small planes that are actually roomier than most jets. They call Memphis their hub and use the old terminal building(no tsa hassles) and they just picked up some more destinations. Look up their route map.

 

Southern Air Express just moved to the same old terminal. They have offered several game flights from Memphis to Drake this season. They are basically flying the same type 9 seaters to vacation destinations along the gulf. They are exploring expanding that business this way. Seems quite the little plane hub developing there just north of the big airport. I read where there's going to be a glut of regional 50 seater jets coming as the big boys dump them for 79 plus seaters and with oil tumbling on new found supplies, the operating costs on those things will plummet with a glut of cheap aircraft on the market. You may see some new upstarts. I wouldn't be shocked to see one based in Memphis, maybe one of those I just mentioned. more of a small scale hub and spoke with props feeding into a hub that sends the 50 seaters to travel destinations. Lord knows Memphis has the gates and with them upgrading the main B terminal  and mothballing A and C. It will be very nice and easy to navigate.

[zman9810]

The access road is getting closer to becoming a reality. The state highway department is close to starting work on the Northern Springdale bypass section from I49 to Hwy 112. Seems the road will be extended past 112 to the spot where it will link with the actual access road when it is built. It always amazes me just how expensive this type road work is- $100 million plus for 4 miles of highway with exchanges. The time to construct it is said to be 4 years which also is surprising- seems like a drawn out schedule. Guess that is the price of progress, though.

[aerotive]

Would like to see some public transit to the airport once the road is built, or even before.  Figure it would be minimal at first but have to start somewhere.  Odd that there been zero service for so long.

[jb1087]

American seems to have taken all of their "mainline" flights out from XNA to DFW for the foreseeable future.  They've added First Class to their regional jets, so the business fliers may be placated in some way, but still disappointing overall.

[TRB]

American seems to have taken all of their "mainline" flights out from XNA to DFW for the foreseeable future.  They've added First Class to their regional jets, so the business fliers may be placated in some way, but still disappointing overall.

Wasn't this done to increase to increase the overall number of flights?

[jb1087]

Wasn't this done to increase to increase the overall number of flights?

Probably so, though I'm not sure it still wasn't a capacity decrease.  They'd have to add 2 regional jet flights for every 1 mainline dropped.  I checked a random Tuesday later this month and there are 8 flights to DFW, which doesn't feel too significantly higher than what it has been.  They've gone back and forth with doing this to LIT over the past 10 years.  They'd take away mainline and then 2 or 3 years it'd be back, and then gone again after the same amount of time.  There's probably some balance needed between the two.  

Edited January 3, 2015 by jb1087

[burnz34]

American Airlines is going through a change right now with their aircraft. All old planes are being replaced, and the new planes aren't coming as fast as expected. So american is trying to take as many big(ger) planes as they got, to the larger cities. Since XNA is one of the smallest market used by mainline, it was slotted as one the first airports to lose those mainline services for a while. Give it 2-3 months before american will put the mainline back into service with XNA. The numbers I have been seeing, with the people traveling in and out of XNA is incredible, it won't be long at all before we see new airlines and aircrafts.

[TRB]

American Airlines is going through a change right now with their aircraft. All old planes are being replaced, and the new planes aren't coming as fast as expected. So american is trying to take as many big(ger) planes as they got, to the larger cities. Since XNA is one of the smallest market used by mainline, it was slotted as one the first airports to lose those mainline services for a while. Give it 2-3 months before american will put the mainline back into service with XNA. The numbers I have been seeing, with the people traveling in and out of XNA is incredible, it won't be long at all before we see new airlines and aircrafts.

Supposedly over 640,000 enplanements for 2014 according to The City Wire. That's above and beyond pre 08 numbers

[burnz34]

Yes TRB. Obviously those are good numbers. It won't be long at all when we are going to big(ger) planes at XNA. Rather than puddle jumpers.

[IronScott]

Yes TRB. Obviously those are good numbers. It won't be long at all when we are going to big(ger) planes at XNA. Rather than puddle jumpers.

We must have a different definition of puddle jumper.

[TRB]

We must have a different definition of puddle jumper.

The newer RJs that most airlines have on order are not your Dashes or CRJ200s of yesteryear.

That said, I saw a huge American bird take off out of Memphis yesterday and meant to look to see what flight the time corresponded with. Wasn't close enough to make out the model big it wasn't too far off from the size of FedEx 777s that were taking off. Shocked me considering the cuts in Memphis

[burnz34]

The newer RJs that most airlines have on order are not your Dashes or CRJ200s of yesteryear.

That said, I saw a huge American bird take off out of Memphis yesterday and meant to look to see what flight the time corresponded with. Wasn't close enough to make out the model big it wasn't too far off from the size of FedEx 777s that were taking off. Shocked me considering the cuts in Memphis

That plane must of been a sports charter or a diversion, memphis would never get an american plane that big. Not now, and not ever. But nonetheless, thats still pretty cool you got to see the plane!

[TRB]

Bad news for Little Rock and no news for XNA, Southwest got United's gates IA a sub lease. Adding flights a day to Memphis. None it appears to Tulsa. Would love for XNA to be a bunny hop route between Dallas and St.Louis to test the waters.

[TRB]

So, I wonder when XNA folk will decide to drop "Regional" from the name and go with National or International along with possibly naming it for someone. I wonder have this Jan stacked up against last Jan. I wonder when we'll here if they start the connector road about the same time as the 412 bypass and if they redo the old side to bring it up to the new side standards or if both get improved and whether or not one of the parking lots get decked.

[Mith242]

So, I wonder when XNA folk will decide to drop "Regional" from the name and go with National or International along with possibly naming it for someone. I wonder have this Jan stacked up against last Jan. I wonder when we'll here if they start the connector road about the same time as the 412 bypass and if they redo the old side to bring it up to the new side standards or if both get improved and whether or not one of the parking lots get decked.

Does XNA even have any international flights?  I'm under the impression the regional/national/international was tied into the types of flights involved.  To move up to a national airport status I'd think they'd have to offer more flights like the airport in Little Rock.

[TRB]

Yes, it does. While not served commercially with direct international flights. Charters brought in for events like the Walmart Shareholders Meeting. So, it does serve international flights. It all depends on whether you want to go that far. I figure within a few years, we'll have a charter service flying to some resort destination in the Caribbean or South of the Border.

[jb1087]

The names are used pretty loosely.  Tulsa's airport is an "International Airport", per the name, but doesn't have any regularly scheduled service from any commercial airline to places outside the United States.  They may have had the service at one time, but they don't now and still get away with being called that.  

OKC has "World Airport" in the name, but similar story to Tulsa.  

Edited February 6, 2015 by jb1087

[TRB]

Numbers continue to grow with Jan having a near 7% increase over Jan 2014. Ft. Smith continues to grow as well. The City Wire has more.

Edited February 17, 2015 by TRB

[aerotive]

Flew out of xna for the first time since the new wing opened, they did a good job.  There's a full service restaurant and plenty of other amenities.  No longer feels like a tiny airport...not medium size yet, but getting there.  Odd to me that the airport has expanded so much but still zero development around it, almost 20 years now after opening.  And I still want public transit going there, odd that there is zero service to such an obvious destination. 

 

Btw the roads going out were genuinely frightening after the last snow and ice event.  49 was completely clear, the roads around Fayetteville ok, once off 49 it got real bad real quick.

[TRB]

Flew out of xna for the first time since the new wing opened, they did a good job.  There's a full service restaurant and plenty of other amenities.  No longer feels like a tiny airport...not medium size yet, but getting there.  Odd to me that the airport has expanded so much but still zero development around it, almost 20 years now after opening.  And I still want public transit going there, odd that there is zero service to such an obvious destination. 

 

Btw the roads going out were genuinely frightening after the last snow and ice event.  49 was completely clear, the roads around Fayetteville ok, once off 49 it got real bad real quick.

I read a Q&A with someone out there, Van Lanningham? Anyhoo, he said the top two priorities was the Access road and a parking garage. Said folks are always requesting covered parking.

 

I'm hoping they get going on upgrading the west terminal to the east terminal standards. That should give them plenty of gates. there's a photo of the master buildout out there somewhere with an east west runway for the second one shown. I figure with the majors getting rid of their smaller regional jets(Delta is especially aggressive) they will not increase frequencies but capacity for the next few years. Allegiant released a huge anount of new routes yesterday and nada for XNA, LR appears to have gained a year round twice weekly LA flight while ours is still just a couple of summer months. Allegiant is moving into Memphis as well. Memphis is expecting big success like what's being seen at Cincy with Allegiant as it has 14 destinations now. Allegiant is basing the MD80s for the Memphis routes in Memphis, that tidbit is flying under the radar in all the press clips. That suggests more flights planned there.  Looks like Branson is still going to try out flights to Austin and New Orleans and Cancun via New Orleans using contracted charters. The NO and Austin flights are showing as low as 79bucks  before a baggage fee each way. It looks like they are gong to dabble in playing travel agent like Allegiant as well.

Edited February 26, 2015 by TRB

[burnz34]

The concorse B expansion will not happen for another 10 years or so, because of the number of flights at XNA. Concorse A still has empty gates that no airline is using, so until all gates are occupied in A there is no need for the west side to be the as the east... All though it would be nice. Allegiant has been testing flights from XNA to Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa for a while to see if there is demand for that flight, which there is. But they have not decided whether or not if they should want if should be a seasonal route or year round. With all this tremendous growth happening, I would not be surprised at all if a new airline annocuned its highly awaited arrival to XNA.