Driven by the volume of people who traveled to the region for Walmart Associates Week, Northwest Arkansas National Airport came within an eyelash of breaking one of its all-time records.
It didn’t quite get there.
The airport on two occasions last week saw more than 6,000 people screened at the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint, but the airport’s busiest day remains June 6, 2025. That day was the Friday of last year’s Walmart celebrations, and the TSA staff screened 6,443 people.
XNA this year saw 6,416 people on Friday, June 5. The Friday of Walmart week is almost always the biggest outbound travel day as people head home after spending a few days in Northwest Arkansas. On Saturday, June 6, another 6,357 were screened by the TSA.
The majority of people screened are airline passengers, but the figure also includes airport employees as well as people who work for airlines and other businesses at XNA who must be screened to access the secure side of the airport terminal.
Aaron Burkes, the airport’s president and CEO, notes that 12 of the airport’s 25 busiest days have occurred this year. That’s quite a feat knowing that the airport has been open for 10,084 days.
While Walmart’s big event in early June each year created the four busiest days in the airport’s history, University of Arkansas events and some holidays can drive up traffic in a substantial way, too.
The airport’s fifth busiest day, for example, was Nov. 30 last year with 5,627 people screened. That was the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
No. 6, No. 7 and No. 10 on the list were football-driven.
The University of Arkansas hosted Tennessee on Oct. 5, 2024, and that event let to 5,621 people being screened the following day at XNA.
The Notre Dame game last year had a big impact. Played on Sept. 27, the airport saw 5,533 people screened on Sept. 28.
No. 10 is Oct. 9 last year, which was two days before the Arkansas-Tennessee game in Knoxville. Arkansas fans traveling to the Knoxville combined with the high number of Allegiant Air flights that occur just about every Thursday helped make Oct. 9 super busy (5,452 people screened).
What about No. 8 and No. 9? Glad you asked.
No. 8 is Sunday, May 31. It’s likely people headed out for summer trips amped up travel that day. The number of people screened was 5,465.
No. 9 was two weeks earlier on May 17 (5,458 screened). It’s probable that some of that Sunday surge was related travelers headed home after attending the Congress for the New Urbanism conference, a national conference of planners, architects and urban design experts who were in Fayetteville and Bentonville from May 12-16. About 1,500 people attend the annual conference.
