Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Regional airport preparing for the coming multitudes
HIGHFILL — Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport officials expect more than 1.3 million travelers a year will pass through their gates by 2035, and they’re putting long-range improvement plans in place now to accommodate those visitors when the time comes.
“Essentially, we’re at the completion stage of this study, and I think that what you have is a document that’s going to be valuable in terms of making decisions and moving forward with what to do with this terminal,” Ryan Hayes with Mead & Hunt told Operations Committee members last week. “I hope it’s a valuable document, and I hope it’s a good decision-making tool for you.”
Mead & Hunt is a national architectural and engineering firm with expertise in aviation facilities.
Consultants, the airport board and staff members identified 15 terminal improvement projects needed to meet passenger demand estimated at $223 million in today’s dollars. They’re expected to include parking decks, concourse and gate expansions, expanding security and baggage claim areas and improving access for aircraft.
“We’ve separated each of the projects into a design and construction phase, and hopefully you’re starting to build the terminal improvements and get ahead of the enplanement growth as opposed to trying to catch up,” Hayes said.
Enplanements are the number of people who boarded an aircraft.
XNA officials are eager to start planning and identifying where the money will come from to pay for the improvement.
“We’ve got to start designing some of these things and putting them on the shelf so we can have them ready
to go,” said Barbara Busiek, director of construction and grant administration at the airport.
“That’s a very smart approach because you eliminate a year or two in that process,” board member Mike Johnson agreed. “So, you’re much more agile on pulling the trigger on actual construction.”
Board member Stan Green said he’d also like to see projects broken out by funding source.
“Ya’ll have three things going on here. There’s stuff that the FAA will participate in, there’s stuff that the rental car companies will have to pay for, and there’s stuff that we’re going to have to pay for because nobody else will pay for it,” Green said. “So, this merges all of that together in one list so that looking at it in terms of funding and what we can do you almost need to bust it out into three pots.”
Board members said they’d like to approve the document later this month. The full board is set to meet June 28.
The terminal renovation and improvement project report by Mead & Hunt is based on specific numbers of travelers triggering when improvements will be needed.
“Those four enplanement levels that we’re looking at are 700,000, 900,000, 1.1 million and 1.3 million,” Hayes said. “You’re going to hit 700,000 enplanements possibly as early as this year so the improvements identified in level one are already needed today, essentially.”
The terminal is 176,000 square feet. Hayes said the layout is good and should be followed.
“Nine gates on each side. Nine gates on [Concourse] A to accommodate larger aircraft fleet mix and nine gates on B would be the kind of ultimate layout,” Hayes said.
Boardings at XNA have been growing faster than was forecast for several years, which is generally attributed to the region’s robust population and economic growth. U.S. Census Bureau estimates forecast Benton and Washington counties will have more than 837,000 residents by 2035. Other entities have estimated they’ll top 800,000 by 2030. The population is a little over 500,000 now.
Boardings at XNA were at 647,530 in 2015. The Federal Aviation Administration predicted that number to exceed 1 million by 2035. Another prediction, based on projected regional economic growth, puts the number at almost 1.4 million by 2035 and is the scenario being used by Mead & Hunt for the study.
Boardings are estimated at 705,544 this year by the FAA.
“The purpose of this exercise is the planning,” reminded Scott Van Laningham, executive director of the airport. “It is not the design yet and the timing and when you pull the trigger on all of that will be decided on an annual basis as you move forward with those projects.”
All cost estimates for the projects are preliminary and will be updated in the airport’s annual capital improvement project budgets, Van Laningham said.
The airport must remain operational during all construction.
“None of this includes my favorite topic,” Johnson said with a chuckle. “The access road.”