The state's largest airport will play a version of musical chairs with its 12 airline gates over the next year as its concourse undergoes a $21 million makeover.
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This week, Gates 1 and 3 on the east side of the concourse at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field were walled off, as the American Airlines gates became the first two gates to receive new carpet and other cosmetic improvements.
The gate holding areas also will undergo the electrical work to accommodate new seats that passengers will be able to use to charge their personal electronic devices. American Airlines gates, for now, will be located in the concourse rotunda, at Gates 8 and 9, as well as Gates 6 and 12 when needed, airport officials said.
About a third of the nearly 2 million passengers who go through Clinton National every year embark or arrive on American flights.
Clinton National officials say they are taking steps to keep passengers of American and the five other airlines operating at the airport abreast of the construction and the changes it will cause, including text messages targeted at affected passengers, social media, new arrival and departure monitors and signs throughout the airport.
They said they also will suspend the concourse construction during the airport's busiest travel period at Thanksgiving and Christmas before resuming the work in January.
To further reduce disruption, much of the construction will take place during off-peak hours, they added.
"We're going to do our best to minimize the inconvenience to our customers," Ron Mathieu, the executive director for Clinton National, said at a briefing and tour held for news organizations Tuesday.
The project includes installing about 800 seats throughout the concourse, replacing the 720 seats now distributed through the concourse's 12 gate holding areas. Each of the new seats will have A/C electrical and USB outlets, as well as two armrests. The seats won't be installed until all 12 gates are renovated, which will take about a year, airport officials said.
The project includes the acquisition of five jet bridges, worth $4.4 million, part of a longer-range plan for the airport to own all the jet bridges. Some of the bridges in line to be replaced are 30 years old or older, are owned by the airlines, and are different models, making them costly and difficult to maintain.
Owning all the bridges will allow the airport to better manage the gates, airport officials have said. The new jet bridges will have self-contained cooling systems.
Work in advance of the concourse renovation included new restrooms that cost $2.5 million, upgraded Wi-Fi that Clinton National officials say is the fastest airport Wi-Fi system in the nation, and a distributed antenna system to boost cellphone signals.
Once the work is complete, passenger "convenience and comfort will be second to none," Virgil Miller Jr., the chairman of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission, said at Tuesday's briefing.
When done, the airport will have spent almost $90 million on upgrades. Much of the focus in recent years was on the main passenger terminal, where improvements were made to the ticketing and baggage areas, including the installation of an in-line baggage delivery system. The system eliminated cumbersome baggage screening equipment in the ticketing lobby.
In addition to the electrical work, other upgrades behind the scenes include a new sprinkler system for the concourse, as well as improved systems to cool the rotunda section of the concourse, airport officials said.
The cosmetic changes will match the concourse decor with the terminal's appearance and include better directional signs throughout the concourse. An annual airport survey shows passengers generally giving Clinton National high marks, but airport officials say they have lost points for the difficulty in making sense of the signs.
Much of the work will be paid through reimbursements from passenger facility charges, which is the $4.50 that is added to the cost of every ticket used by a passenger boarding at Clinton National. The airport receives about $4.5 million annually in such charges.
Minimal work has been done on the concourse since it opened in 1972. The seats, for instance, haven't been replaced in those 44 years.
About 20 are taken out of service every month to be refurbished, said Shane Carter, an airport spokesman.
He was unable to provide details on any improvements made to the concourse before the airport's senior management team took over the airport. Mathieu came aboard in 2006 as deputy executive director and took over the top position two years later.
Previous news accounts noted new carpeting installed in the concourse in 1995 at a cost of $90,000. The airport teamed with its concessionaire three years later to split the $3 million cost to construct the food court near the concourse rotunda.
Metro on 10/19/2016