Southwest Airlines will offer nonstop flights between Little Rock and St. Louis beginning in January, resuming a service that was discontinued in 2013.
The route's return came after nearly two years of discussions between Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field and the Dallas-based airline, according to airport spokesman Shane Carter.
"After this route left us in 2013 we heard from so many people, not only in Little Rock, but across the state who used the St. Louis service and asked us to do everything we could to get it back," Carter said. "It certainly elevated it on our list. We're always very responsive to the communities we serve."
Southwest's service between Little Rock and St. Louis will resume Jan. 6 with two daily flights on a Boeing 737. Ron Mathieu, the airport's executive director, said in a statement that the return of the St. Louis route also gives Little Rock passengers "additional connectivity."
Thirty destinations -- including Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, Oklahoma City and Fort Lauderdale -- will be available to Little Rock passengers through St. Louis connections.
"We've been extremely focused on regaining nonstop service to St. Louis since it was discontinued in 2013," Mathieu said in the statement.
The announcement came as the number of passengers boarding flights or arriving in the state's largest airport declined this year. The airport -- which hosts six airlines and has about 70 flights daily -- had 8.9 percent fewer passengers through the first five months of 2015 compared with the same period a year ago.
T.J. Williams, the airport's air service development director, said earlier this month that fewer daily flights offered by Southwest was one factor in the decline.
Southwest announced in May 2014 that it was cutting its number of daily flights to Little Rock from 11 to seven. The cuts came after the expiration of the Wright Amendment, which became law in 1980 and limited the destinations of planes with more than 56 seats departing Dallas Love Field to airports in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Kansas, Louisiana, Alabama and Missouri.
Business on 07/01/2015