BENTONVILLE, Ark. — The Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) is celebrating 25 years of serving flyers in and out of Northwest Arkansas.
On November 1st, 1998, the airport began operations with an opening ceremony from then-President Bill Clinton and Air Force 1. Decades later, the airport revisited influential figures that helped it grow to where it is today.
Faces like Jerry Argetsinger help flyers get from point A to point B.
"Most of the questions are about where to go for their Ubers," Argetsinger said while laughing. "[Or they're] about the luggage and often about where their flights will be."
Argetsinger moved to Northwest Arkansas from England to retire. It's something many have done since the region's population has grown from around 330,000 to nearly 580,000.
"We wanted to be somewhere near the hills," the retiree said. "I was originally in Minnesota, and that was just too cold. And so we looked around at a few magazines and it said Northwest Arkansas was a good place to live."
Former Governor Asa Hutchinson reflected on the airport's impact in a video released by XNA.
"You've got to have reliable air transportation with direct routes to major cities if you're going to continue that growth and attract the talent you want," Hutchinson said.
"When we built the airport, we didn't have one airline signed up. I mean, zero," XNA Board Member Phillip Taldo said.
In their first year, XNA saw over 653,000 passengers compared to nearly 1.7 million passengers in 2022.
XNA officials say they're not looking at the past 25 years, but at the next 25 with many projects ahead.
"We want people to step off of the plane, look around, and say, 'okay, this is what Northwest Arkansas is about,'" XNA spokesperson Olivia Tyler said.
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