CORRECTION: Under federal regulations, only the aviation fuel tax collected on airport property after Dec. 30, 1987, must be remitted to the airport. This article incorrectly said any tax collected on airport property must be remitted to the airport. Also, a US Airways flight scheduled to end in October is being replaced with an American Airlines flight as a result of the merger of the two airlines. The article said it was ending in November.
The state's largest airport continues to see fewer passengers, but the decline isn't reflected in its bottom line yet.
The falloff in passengers came as a new survey suggests that while Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field generally receives high marks from the traveling public, the population that uses the airport comes from a demogragraphic that is wealthier than the typical Arkansas household.
A total of 191,050 passengers went through Clinton National in July, a 4.87 percent decline from the same month in 2014. For the year, 7.43 percent fewer passengers have arrived at or departed from the airport, according to the latest figures presented to the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission on Tuesday.
The numbers left the commission chairman, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, admitting frustration, particularly because they came a day after Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport announced it was adding daily, nonstop service to San Francisco.
At Clinton National, air service has been a mixed bag. Southwest Airlines added an additional flight to Dallas on Aug. 9 that will be available through Nov. 1, said T.J. Williams, the airport's air service development director. New service by the airline to St. Louis begins in January.
Allegiance Air concluded its seasonal direct flight between Little Rock and Los Angeles earlier this month, she said. A US Airways flight is scheduled to end Nov. 18.
"It feels like we've got a 'going out of business' trend at this airport," Clark said. "The airlines are not serving this community the way it should be served."
Clark and other commission members pressed the airport staff on the disconnect, but Ron Mathieu, the airport's executive director, said air service availability at Clinton National and other airports "comes down to the issue of demand."
Still, the airport continues to have a healthy income. Total net income for the year so far was $5,998,494, or 2 percent higher than the $5,883,054 the airport collected in the first seven months of 2014.
Airport staff members are working to collect an additional $250,000 in revenue that it was supposed to receive from the sales tax on aviation fuel. Mathieu is to meet with Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore about the matter, which concerns a tax increase voters approved in 2011.
While the tax was levied for city initiatives, any tax collected on airport property must be remitted to the airport on the basis of federal grant assurances. Part of the 1 percent increase that was dedicated to city operations that was applied to aviation fuel sales did go to the airport. But another part, three-eighths of a cent dedicated to citywide capital improvements, went to the city, a total of about $250,000 since 2012.
Mathieu also said the airport was on track to become debt-free by early next year. But commission member Tom Schueck said the commission set that goal with the idea that the airport would take on new debt to expand the number of gates at the airport. But with the decrease in passengers, that project is "up in the air," he said.
"You take on debt when you're growing," he said. "We're not growing."
Meanwhile, the survey of 400 randomly selected passengers by Phoenix Marketing International on behalf of the airport showed that the average household income of those surveyed was $92,000.
By comparison, the average Arkansas household income was $55,547 in 2013, the latest year for which data was available, according to U.S. Census Bureau.
The household income of the Clinton National passengers surveyed also was higher than the average household income in central Arkansas ($65,319) as well as the United States ($73,767), according to census data.
Using average income, or mean income, can result in outliers skewing the average, but Shane Carter, an airport spokesman, said Phoenix Marketing executives say they "clean out the outliers so that the number will not be skewed."
Statisticians often rely on median income, which is the amount dividing income distribution into two equal parts, one half below the median amount and one half above. Median household income in Arkansas is $40,511, according to Census data. For central Arkansas, it is $48,304. In the United States, it is $52,250.
Only 30 percent of those surveyed said they were traveling on business. Those people had an average household income of $112,400. Fifty-seven percent of the passengers surveyed said they were using the trip for leisure, vacation or visiting friends or relatives. They had an average household income of $79,400.
The survey found 92 percent of departing passengers interviewed were satisfied with their overall experience at Clinton National. The score was 11 percentage points higher than the national average, which was based on 35,000 airport evaluations Phoenix Marketing International said it performed in 2014.
"This is an acknowledgment of not only a great performance by our staff but by our partners as well," Mathieu said.
The survey was conducted weekly in April, May and June. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.
Satisfaction with the gate area was 84 percent, with only 70 percent of those surveyed saying they were satisfied with the number of power outlets, an amenity high in demand in an age when everyone has a smart phone or electronic tablet. A $20.6 million project to renovate the airport concourse that is expected to begin next summer and take a year to complete will, among other things, increase the number of power outlets.
Commission members thought the survey should include arriving passengers because they said that based on the complaints they receive, the 82 percent satisfaction with the timeliness of baggage delivery didn't seem accurate. But Carter told the commission that the first survey Phoenix conducted didn't get a good response rate because arriving passengers were in a hurry to leave the airport.
Information for this article was contributed by Chad Day of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 08/19/2015