HIGHFILL -- Expansion projects will have to be started sooner than planned if passenger enplanements continue to outpace projections at the Northwest Arkansas National Airport, officials said.
A new set of projections, compiled for airport planning purposes, indicate growth at XNA could be even larger than anticipated over the next 20 years.
Calculations by Mead & Hunt, an airport development consulting firm, say passengers could surpass 1 million by 2021 and reach 2.88 million by 2040. Projections also say passengers could reach 936,139 by the end of this year.
Federal Aviation Administration forecasts anticipate XNA not breaking 1 million passengers until 2030 and being about 1.3 million by 2040. The FAA data anticipated 799,978 passengers this year, which has already been surpassed.
The Mead & Hunt study used data from this year as a base supplemented with historical growth trends at the airport, Federal Aviation Administration forecast data and socioeconomic data for the region, such as population growth and personal income growth.
Various scenarios were averaged for a growth figure of 4.1%.
If current projections are met, the average annual growth for the past two years will have been about 13.7%, according to the memo. The airport's plan, using 2012 as a base, projected an annual growth rate of 2.4% and a 2015 update projected average growth of 7.9% per year.
"These forecasts are going to be low again because we just can't get it right because you're doing so great," said Ryk Dunkelberg with Mead & Hunt. "These enplanements were done specifically for you all, and they're not going to the FAA." An enplanement is defined as one passenger boarding a commercial aircraft at the airport.
The memo notes current high levels of double-digit growth aren't likely to continue through the next 20 years at XNA, but it is likely passengers will continue to increase at a rate higher than the national average, so airport officials will have to continue scrambling to keep up.
"We think the Mead & Hunt projections seem realistic," said Aaron Burkes, chief executive officer at the airport. "We have obviously spent a great deal of time thinking about enplanement projections since that one variable accounts for such a significant part of our overall funding model."
The Mead & Hunt projections were done "in the best interests of the airport" not for FAA approval, Dunkelberg said. FAA approval of passenger projections as part of a master plan or environmental document is required to be eligible for federal money.
The information in the Mead & Hunt projections will be used by airport officials for internal planning of capital projects. The XNA board wants to trigger improvements based on certain target levels of passengers.
"The years are not important. What's important is when we reach that number of enplanements, and we could do it plus or minus four or five years with our forecast," Dunkelberg said. "What's important is the number of enplanements and then the facilities that are required to accommodate those numbers of enplanements."
Dunkelberg said if the numbers ever vary from actual by 10% or more, the projections should be refigured.
NW News on 12/15/2019