Fewer Northwest Arkansas travelers are relying on neighboring airports in other states to catch flights, an airport consultant’s report shows.
The report shared earlier this month by Volaire Aviation Consulting shows Northwest Arkansas National Airport in 2024 retained 77% of the passengers who live in XNA’s so-called catchment area. It means about 23 of every 100 travelers are relying on an alternative airport such as those in Tulsa, Kansas City and Springfield, Mo.
For XNA, the passenger leakage improvement is meaningful. In 2023, the airport retained 71% of its passengers, and its passenger retention a decade ago was near 61%.
XNA’s self-determined catchment area includes all or portions of 16 counties. The zone stretches out to include the areas near Van Buren, Alma, Charleston and Harrison in Arkansas; Jay and Grove in eastern Oklahoma; and Neosho and Monett in southern Missouri.
What’s most notable is just how much XNA has reduced the number of people who are traveling from the catchment area to fly from Tulsa. The report shows about 464 people a day left the area to fly from Tulsa in 2023, or about 12.6% of all fliers. It decreased to 277 (7.1%) in 2024.
Cutting leakage
Driving down what’s known as “leakage,” meaning the number of people in the catchment area who use Tulsa or other neighboring airports, was a goal identified when the Northwest Arkansas Council established its FareFlight NWA program.
Since 2019, the Council has used the FareFlight NWA website, blog posts, a related Twitter account and lunchtime presentations and conversations with Northwest Arkansas community groups such as Rotary Clubs to share information about the economic benefit that occurs when a person flies from XNA.
Jobs are supported in Northwest Arkansas when passengers purchase airfare, parking, food, drinks and other things related to business and leisure trips from XNA. Just as importantly, airline route planners take note of airports that are performing well, and they consider those airports for future service expansions. Higher passenger numbers increase the likelihood of new routes.
Retaining passengers
The Volaire report makes it possible to identify which nonstop destinations are seeing the highest number of passengers retained by XNA as well as better understand why others slip away.
It shows XNA retained high percentages of the passengers traveling to their final destinations in Destin/Fort Walton Beach (95.4%), Charlotte (92.1%), Nashville (91%), New York/Newark (90.5%), Chicago (90.2%), Minneapolis/St. Paul (88.8%) and Atlanta (88.7%).
XNA does well to Destin because the neighboring airports offer no service or airfare advantages. Allegiant, for example, flies from both XNA and Tulsa, and the airfare is just about always similar. Regarding Charlotte, American Airlines has more nonstop flights from XNA than it does Tulsa on most days.
Those who chose to drive to a more distant airport in 2024 were most often flying to Seattle (43.5%), Salt Lake City (38.4%), Las Vegas (34.8%), Boston (31%), Orlando/Sanford (27.3%) or San Francisco (25.3%).
It’s not hard to see why XNA loses the travelers to some of those destinations. For example, Kansas City International Airport has three airlines flying nonstop to Seattle, and it also has a nonstop to San Francisco. XNA has never had Seattle service, and it lost its United Airlines nonstop to San Francisco in 2020.
XNA is well positioned to reduce its leakage because of decisions already made by airlines.
Regarding Salt Lake City, Tulsa had a nonstop flight on Delta Air Lines throughout 2024 to the Utah city, and XNA didn’t have that service. Now that Delta has added a nonstop from XNA to Salt Lake, it’ll be interesting to see how many of those travelers driving to Tulsa before flying move their 2025 trips to XNA.
The Tulsa airport also benefits from having more nonstop service to Las Vegas compared to XNA. While both airports have nonstops on Allegiant to Sin City, Tulsa gains an advantage because Southwest Airlines makes nonstop trips to Las Vegas twice a day.
Tulsa has long had the advantage of having Southwest Airlines providing flights. XNA has long sought but never had Southwest flights.
It’s worth monitoring whether a Southwest Airlines change regarding bag fees will reduce Tulsa’s allure for Northwest Arkansas leisure travelers. The airline has allowed two free checked bags for about 60 years, but that policy changes and fees for most bags will start being imposed on Southwest flights booked after May 27.
