Getting it all started : American Eagle’s move to XNA an overnight experience
Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008
Editor's note: This story is the second in a series of monthly features leading up to the 10 th anniversary of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport's opening.
HIGHFILL - Stop by the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport today, and it's business as usual. While looking for a parking spot in the busy public lots, you're sure to see a plane or two coming or going overhead. Business people and families are filing in and out of the terminal building, the ticket counters and rental car tenants are serving customers, and the baggage carousels are spitting out suitcases and boxes.
That's the picture most people have when they think of XNA. But Steven Pflughaupt, American Eagle's lead agent at XNA, has been at the Highfill facility since it opened its doors in November 1998, before the baggage carousel ever turned, the first customer ever waited in line and the first flights were ever boarded or disembarked. More than anything, he remembers the military-like operation of moving American Eagle - the first carrier at XNA - from Drake Field in Fayetteville to the new Highfill facility in the middle of the night in order to be up and running on time for the grand opening the next morning.
"I remember how crazy it was, watching our last flight at Drake Field go out on Oct. 31, 1998, and packing everything American Eagle owned that same night to get moved over to XNA," Pflughaupt said. "You could still see that last flight leaving Fayetteville, and the trucks were already being loaded. It was a bit of a military operation to make it all happen. Load after load was moved to XNA in the night, and we were up and running the next morning by 8 a.m. when our first flight to Dallas was scheduled to go out. Somehow, we did it."
A matter of minutes before that 8 a.m. departure - the first from XNA - to Dallas was boarded on Nov. 1, 1998, the first arrival - from Chicago - had touched down in Highfill. American Eagle was the only carrier at the facility, but XNA was up and running and has never looked back.
"It's difficult to describe what it's like to be the first carrier at a brand-new airport," Pflughaupt said. "You're not familiar with the building, the runway or where anything is. And it's not just you running around with your head cut off. No one is familiar with anything because no one has ever been there before. Everything's new. But being the first carrier at XNA was something American Eagle was not going to pass up. This airport immediately opened the door to start expanding our operations in northwest Arkansas by leaps and bounds."
American Eagle, which opened XNA with just a few flights and destinations in November 1998, has since expanded to include multiple flights to Miami, Dallas / Fort Worth, New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D. C., and Raleigh / Durham, N. C.
Within a matter of months, such airlines as Continental Express, Delta, NWA Airlink, U. S. Airways Express and United had signed on, servicing such destinations as Houston; Newark, N. J.; Atlanta; Cincinnati; Memphis; Minneapolis / St. Paul; Detroit; Denver; Charlotte, N. C.; Chicago; and Dallas / Fort Worth.
Now discussions have shifted to drawing a low-cost carrier to XNA, something airport executives say customers can expect to see in the not-so-distant future. But American Eagle - the airline that got it all going - remains the anchor carrier at XNA. Northwest Arkansas now comes up on the radar of those who frequent the friendly skies.
"Prior to coming here, I would hear about XNA and northwest Arkansas, but to be honest, I didn't know much and it seemed pretty insignificant," said Jude Mayeux, who served as general manager of American Eagle operations at XNA from 2002 to 2007. "I had to look at a map to see exactly where it was geographically before I was assigned. Now, it's quite a different story. Everyone knows about XNA. The growth of our operations here and this whole facility has been incredible - and in such a relatively short period of time."
Until the opening of XNA, northwest Arkansas had only been serviced by turbo-prop planes. The hills that surround Drake Field and that airport's proximity to densely populated areas made anything larger impossible. The opening of XNA solved both of those problems, making possible additional destinations, larger aircraft and the flexibility for the facility to grow with the region and its large base of business travelers.
"I had been at Drake Field for a while before XNA opened," Pflughaupt said. "Drake is a wonderful airport, but it had its limitations for what this area needed. The day XNA opened, I remember feeling as though things were really starting to move here. I felt like we were on the verge of something really special here in northwest Arkansas, and that's proven true."
When XNA opened, just a handful of American Eagle employees were based here. By the time Mayeux arrived in 2002, that number had grown to about 40. Through continuous expansion efforts and the recent purchase of a new maintenance hangar and the relocation of jobs from the American Eagle center in Bangor, Maine, to Highfill, XNA's anchor airline now has more than 200 employees here.
"Normally, if you do what I do in the airline business, you move around a lot with your job," Pflughaupt said. "I've been able to work my way up the ladder without ever changing my address, and frankly, I enjoy living here. The way things have unfolded here is pretty unique.
"You're not trying to convince people to come work here anymore. They want to come be a part of what's happening. Look around at the number of employees we have in any other market of comparable size, and it's not even close."
Working a shift at XNA today is quite a bit different that it was in November 1998. Pflughaupt said he's still never been as tired as he was following American Eagle's middleof-the-night scramble to get the entire operation moved to Highfill nearly 10 years ago, though. That set the stage for the success that's followed, both for the airline and XNA as a whole.
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