New data from Northwest Arkansas National Airport provides insight into how many passengers can be anticipated by year’s end.

The 108,554 passengers in August, which became the first August with more than 100,000 passengers, puts XNA on pace for about 1.3 million people boarding flights in 2025.

In the airport’s best year (2024), there were 1.14 million.

It was the fourth consecutive month in which XNA flew past 100,000 passengers boarding flights.

XNA’s remarkable growth in flights, nonstop destinations and passengers is reflective of what’s occurred across Northwest Arkansas for three decades.

In 1995, the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical area had about 300,000 residents, and the region’s population reached 605,615 by mid-2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

XNA, which opened in late 1998, saw 329,000 passengers in its first full year, but it grew higher. It first topped 500,000 in 2004, and it passed 600,000 in 2014. It set an all-time high when it reached 922,000 passengers in 2019.

Growth at airports nationwide was stymied in 2020 and 2021 by the COVID-19 pandemic, but XNA started returning to its fast-growing self in 2022, finishing the year with 836,000 passengers.

XNA gained a new head of jet fuel in 2023, falling just short of 1 million passengers.