http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/260985/ NWAnews.com :: Northwest Arkansas Arkansas Democrat-Gazette TRAVELERS' CHECK : Gathering is airport's busiest week ROBERT J. SMITH Posted on Monday, June 1, 2009 Travel patterns at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport are like clockwork with the annual exception of this week. The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shareholders meeting, set for Friday at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, changes every routine at XNA. Only one other airport in the nation - Eppley Field in Omaha, Neb. - sees as much change because of a shareholders meeting, and that's a metropolitan area twice as big as Northwest Arkansas. It's estimated that 2,600 people will arrive at XNA to be among the 19,000 attendees at Wal-Mart's big gig. "I can't think of an area that size with a meeting so large," said American Airlines spokesman Andrea Huguely. "That's a unique situation." The airlines starting today will use bigger planes to accommodate extra passengers, but the best evidence of the annual meeting's impact on XNA comes Saturday when the Wal-Mart folks head home. The 39 commercial flights scheduled to depart are 14 more than a typical Saturday. Delta Air Lines's Saturday schedule includes three extra flights to Atlanta. American's got three extras to Dallas/Fort Worth, and Continental has two more Saturday flights to Houston. U.S. Airways doesn't have a regular Saturday flight from XNA to Charlotte, but it has two this Saturday. The Guru scoured the nation last week, hunting big small-town events with onetime impacts on small airports. He found no exact replica. In Augusta, Ga., during The Masters tournament in April, Delta and U.S. Airways landed 20 to 22 flights a day from Atlanta, Charlotte and other hubs at Augusta Regional Airport. The airport has 14 daily flights on a typical day, said marketing director Diane Johnson. The impact is similar for the Tennessee airport near Bristol Motor Speedway. Tri-Cities Regional Airport sees more flights and bigger planes in the days near late August's Sharpie 500 NASCAR race, said Melissa Thomas, the airport's marketing director. Few corporations can match Wal-Mart's impact on a small airport, though. After all, the big companies are in the big cities. Wal-Mart's odd that way, but there are others. Deere & Co., the all-American tractor manufacturer, is in Moline, Ill., a city of 43,000 in a metropolitan area near Northwest Arkansas' size. However, just 500 to 600 people attend the shareholders meeting so there's no need to send bigger planes to Quad City International Airport. General Electric's shareholders meeting seemed another possibility since the company moves it from one city to another. The company held its 2007 event in Erie, Pa., and was in Greenville, S.C., last year. "GE's annual meeting is not the massive affair you might imagine," said GE spokesman Peter O'Toole. "The past few years, we've had between 600 and 1,000 people attend." There is, however, one corporate meeting bigger than Wal-Mart's bonanza, and it's put on by Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha. Among the 35,000 people who heard Warren Buffett speak at the shareholders meeting May 2 were 15,000 who arrived by plane, said Steve Coufal, director of the Omaha Airport Authority. So, while Wal-Mart's affair isn't the biggest nationwide and the impact on the local airport isn't the greatest, it's still a doozy for XNA. Robert J. Smith's column about people on the move in Northwest Arkansas appears each Monday. He can be reached at rsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Copyright =A9 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxx <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If you wish to unsubscribe from the AIRLINE List, please send an E-mail to: "listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". Within the body of the text, only write the following:"SIGNOFF AIRLINE".