The airlines serving Northwest Arkansas National Airport invested far more money into providing service last year than they did the year before, and the overall results were terrific.
Federal data makes such conclusions possible, as the airlines made 1.56 million seats available for purchase at XNA in 2025, a 12.5% increase over the previous year. Passengers responded to the extra availability, filling 1.26 million seats, an all-time enplanement record. That figure represents 10.4% more passengers than in 2024.
In all, the airlines added 294,190 seats at XNA last year. Delta Air Lines (97,812) and American Airlines (89,216) accounted for most of that growth.
Large portions of Delta’s increases were tied to new nonstop routes that connected passengers to Salt Lake City (23,460 seats) and Detroit (21,298 seats).
Yet, Delta’s biggest investment was in flights to Atlanta where 32,290 additional seats were available last year. The total of 188,337 available seats is the highest number ever provided by Delta at XNA to any destination.
American’s investments focused on making it easier for XNA passengers to reach Chicago (27,921 additional seats), Philadelphia (24,261) and Phoenix (23,372). The XNA-Philadelphia route started 13 months ago, and the Phoenix route, which started in 2023, is now served by three nonstop flights a day on most Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Four other airlines are at XNA: United Airlines, Allegiant Air, Breeze Airways and Frontier Airlines. Among those four, only Frontier made significant changes to its XNA service, cutting its seat capacity to Denver by 37.8%. Frontier’s only destination from XNA is Denver.
Small increases in seat capacity were made by Allegiant Air (3.2%) and Breeze Airways (2.9%).
Allegiant’s 152,558 available seats included a new seasonal route to Gulf Shores, Ala. (9,644 seats) and an increase in how much service it provided to Destin, Fla. (a 6,480 seat increase).
Breeze, meanwhile, added a nonstop flight to Pensacola last year (4,982 new seats), and it made a small increase in its nonstops to New Orleans (1,039 more seats).
The highest number of available seats in the XNA market were available to passengers traveling to Dallas/Fort Worth (295,337 seats). Delta’s flights to Atlanta ranked No. 2 (188,337 seats), and Chicago O’Hare ranked No. 3 (105,774 American seats; 66,876 United seats).
