LR airport use falls 10% as drop enters 5th month

Passengers check in Tuesday afternoon for a flight at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, where boardings and arrivals continued to decline.
Passengers check in Tuesday afternoon for a flight at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, where boardings and arrivals continued to decline.

A pronounced decline in the number of passengers using the state's largest airport continued in May.

Passenger boardings and arrivals declined 10.2 percent last month, leaving Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field with 8.9 percent less passengers for the first five months of 2015 compared with the same period a year ago.

A total 756,032 passengers used the airport in 2015 through May 31, according to the latest figures available. That compared with 829,972 through the first five months of 2014, a decline of almost 74,000 passengers.

Last year, total passenger volume fell 4.2 percent to 2,076,551. The last year-over-year gain was in 2012 when 2,292,962 passengers arrived and departed, a 3.99 percent increase from 2011.

On Tuesday, T.J. Williams, the airport's air service development director, told members of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission, which oversees the airport, that some of the most recent decline can be attributed to American Airlines' decision to switch from the mainline jets it was using at Clinton National in favor of smaller 76-seat regional jets, leaving fewer seats available for sale.

That switch occurred in January, said Shane Carter, the airport spokesman.

Other factors in the decline were fewer daily flights offered by Southwest Airlines and the loss of Frontier Airlines service, Williams said.

Airport executives are hoping to see a rise in activity with the introduction of a daily direct flight between Clinton National and Los Angeles International Airport, a route airport executives have been trying to land for almost 10 years. Allegiant Air began the seasonal twice-a-week service earlier this month. It is scheduled to end in August.

"I appreciate the time and effort that goes into this," said Virgil Miller Jr., a commission member. "I bought four tickets to LA."

The new service is Allegiant's second nonstop route from Little Rock, adding to service to Orlando that began June 6, 2013.

"It worked from Little Rock to Orlando," retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, the commission chairman, said at the launch of the new Allegiant service last week. "We believe it will work to Los Angeles."

The airline says it provides its passengers with low base fares that are, on average, nearly half the cost of the average domestic round-trip fare.

The airport also is expecting a boost from the American Taekwondo Association's 25th annual Expo Conference in Little Rock July 8-12. Little Rock is the association's headquarters.

It is one of the city's largest conventions and, according to Carter, expected to attract an estimated 20,000 from the United States, South Africa, Europe, South America, Europe, Australia and Asia. About 60 percent of the attendees are likely to arrive by air, he said.

Whatever growth in passenger activity the airport experiences in the future likely will be through offering more service by airlines such as Allegiant, which is one of a handful of ultra low-cost carriers, to leisure destinations, Williams said.

"The most notable growth we're going to continue to see is through the ultra low-cost carriers," she said. "That would be Frontier or Jet Blue or Allegiant. Some of the destinations which focus primarily on leisure happen to be Las Vegas, Orlando, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Honolulu and Cancun."

Earlier this month, Williams attended a conference in Seattle to meet with airline representatives to woo business. She said she met with representatives from six airlines, including three already serving Clinton National.

"They were very positive in our meetings," Williams said. "They looked at our proposals. They are now looking at proposals beyond the fall of 2016. That's where the planning is at this point."

The airport's struggles with passenger numbers come as Airlines for America, the industry trade organization for the top U.S. airlines, forecasts that summer airline travel between June 1 and Aug. 31 is expected to total 222 million passengers, a 4.5 percent increase from last summer.

To accommodate the anticipated demand, airlines are increasing available seats by 4.6 percent, according to the trade group.

Still, Clinton National isn't alone among airports struggling to keep airline service, which has been falling for the past several years at small-hub airports as airlines have consolidated and focused service on higher-volume hubs, such as Chicago and Atlanta, as well as international flights.

Memphis International Airport's passenger traffic fell to 1,061,436 through the same time period, a 5.78 percent drop.

Passenger traffic at Shreveport Regional Airport has fallen 3.12 percent through April, to 183,108.

Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City saw its passenger totals slide 3.4 percent to 1,421,167 through May, according to data posted on the airport's website.

The decline in passenger traffic was especially steep at Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport in Jackson, Miss. Through April, passenger traffic fell to 193,145, or 16.1 percent, according to data posted on the airport's website.

Some airports in the region are weathering the new airline model.

Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport saw its passenger traffic rise 4.28 percent through April, to 193,461.

Tulsa International Airport's passenger traffic remained relatively flat, falling 0.6 percent, to 808,686 through April, according to statistics posted on its website.

The falloff in passengers can hit an airport's bottom line. Clinton National receives a federally mandated $4.50 passenger facility charge for every ticket purchased for a flight from the airport. The nearly 74,000 fewer passengers translates into an almost $333,000 drop in revenue from the charge.

Still, net income from operations at Clinton National through May was about $3 million, nearly $600,000 more than at the same time a year ago.

At the same time, the airport is looking for savings elsewhere. A modernization program focused on utilities, principally electricity use, is expected to save up to $383,000 annually.

Electricity costs have been reduced by more than $200,000 annually in the remade passenger terminal and the parking deck.

Since the Airport Commission adopted its energy-conservation program in 2009, the airport has reduced terminal electricity costs by approximately $10,000 per month on average and the electricity costs in the parking deck by approximately $7,000 per month.

Airport officials expect to sign an agreement soon with Entergy Arkansas in which the airport will go off the grid during peak periods and use its own generators to provide power. In agreeing to go off the grid, the utility will charge lower rates to the airport, generating an estimated $173,000 in annual savings, according to Carter.

The latest figures, from January, showed passenger volume declined 6.88 percent in the first month of the year.

The airport also saw American Airlines announce it would discontinue direct service between Clinton National and LaGuardia Airport in New York next month, less than a year after the flight began.

Metro on 06/17/2015

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