The Airport You'll Actually Fly From: XNA

Northwest Arkansas National Airport is building a new concourse that will add a net five gates, and it is trying to pay for the work with a federal infrastructure loan that no airport has yet used this way. For anyone moving to Bentonville or anywhere else in NWA, the airport is a bigger part of daily life than newcomers expect. Here is what is being built, how it is being paid for, and why the region cares this much about it.

What Is Actually Being Built

XNA has a $78.8 million contract with CDI Contractors for a 111,000-square-foot addition the airport calls the Western Concourse. The gate math is a little odd: the concourse adds seven gates, but two are lost when existing space becomes a hallway, so the net gain is five. The new gates are also sized for the larger aircraft XNA is increasingly seeing, and the project makes room for more food and beverage space.

Construction starts this fall. The airport's own project page runs the build to September 2028, while news coverage has put completion in spring 2029 — either way, this is a late-decade project.

Financing is the unusual part. XNA has spent nearly a year applying for a loan through the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program, and airport officials hope to be the first in the country to use it for a terminal expansion. XNA chief executive Aaron Burkes has estimated the loan could save around $30 million against conventional financing. Officials are also looking at using the same program next year for a rental car parking garage.

1. Business Built This Airport

XNA exists because business demanded it. Sam Walton, J.B. Hunt and Don Tyson identified an airport as a regional necessity in the late 1980s and helped form the Northwest Arkansas Council partly to make it happen. The airport opened in 1998.

That demand has not let up. Walmart, J.B. Hunt, Tyson, their suppliers and the long list of companies that moved here to be near them generate constant travel. Suppliers fly in for meetings, employees fly out, and newer NWA companies like 7 Brew add to the load. The growth is measurable: XNA passed Little Rock's Clinton National in 2025 to become the busiest airport in Arkansas, with about 1.26 million passengers boarding against Little Rock's 1.16 million.

2. It Is Part of the Lifestyle Pitch

The Council also works on the region's behalf to recruit airlines and improve service, which is a large part of why a metro this size gets direct flights to Chicago, Florida, Texas, California and Colorado at reasonable fares, on carriers including American, Allegiant and Breeze.

That matters for the trade-off people make when they move here. NWA has a great deal going for it, but it does not have everything. A major concert or a weekend in New York means leaving, and no amount of local growth changes that. An airport with more gates and more destinations is what makes the trade-off work — you can live here and still get anywhere.

3. Recognition Is the Quiet Driver

The third reason is harder to put on a spreadsheet. When people fly in to see Crystal Bridges, to visit the University of Arkansas, to tour the coming Bentonville hospital campus or the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine, the airport is the first thing they see. That first impression does real work for the region.

XNA used to be purely utilitarian — it did the job and nothing more. It has since become something closer to a destination in its own right, with a business wing and space showcasing Crystal Bridges and the Momentary. More gates, more concourse and more restaurants continue that.

The drive changed too. XNA opened without a direct freeway connection, which meant landing and then winding through back roads and farmland long enough to wonder whether you were in the right place. On September 4 the Arkansas Department of Transportation opened the four-mile XNA Connector, linking the airport to the Springdale Northern Bypass and on to Interstate 49. The Highway 612 corridor and the new bypass section are being redesignated Interstate 42, and the connector becomes Highway 642.

What It Means If You Are Moving Here

For anyone weighing NWA against a bigger metro, the airport is usually the sticking point, and it is the thing most likely to be underestimated from the outside. A net five gates does not sound dramatic. What it represents is a region that keeps outgrowing its own infrastructure and keeps building ahead of the curve rather than behind it.

The concourse will not open for years, so nobody should plan a trip around it yet. But between the connector road that just opened and the gates that are coming, flying in and out of Northwest Arkansas is on track to be meaningfully easier than it was even a year ago.