EXPLORE A FUTURE IN
AVIATION
From police officers to pilots, consider
hundreds of opportunities at XNA
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS REGIONAL AIRPORT (XNA) connects
our region to the world with more than 40 flights a day to 15
destinations. It can be an exciting place to start a career. It takes
hundreds of people working together daily to serve travelers.
More than 21 million passengers have gone through XNA since it
opened in 1998. The airport has added gates, boarding bridges and
parking to keep up with demand. As the airport grows, so does the
number of people it takes to operate the facility. “Nearly 700 people
work at the airport every day, and that number is only going to go
up,” says Kelly Johnson, XNA’s chief operating officer.
Johnson was the first employee hired at the airport and has seen how
far XNA has come in the past two decades. She explains that
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FAYETTEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
not all the people you see working at XNA are employed by the
airport itself, which is governed by the Northwest Arkansas Regional
Airport Authority. “We have about 50 full-time employees,” Johnson
says. “We are the only airport in the state with our own police
department, and we also have nine firefighters.”
Some of the airport’s other careers involve skilled trades. “We
have master electricians, HVAC technicians, mechanics for the jet
bridges and a construction department,” Johnson says. “There’s also
a communications center that’s staffed 24/7. The communications
center team acts as dispatchers, monitors security cameras and
responds to emergency calls. They logged more than 62,000
interactions in one year.”