HMS Host, the food and beverage concessionaire at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, has notified the state that it will eliminate 70 jobs, the latest economic casualties of the coronavirus pandemic that has devastated the travel industry.
Most of the affected employees have been furloughed since March as have thousands of other workers across the company's operations at 120 airports in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.
All HMS employees at the state's largest airport were notified in August that they would lose their jobs on Thursday if they weren't recalled by that date.
HMS and other large employers are required under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to provide advance notification to workers when faced with mass job eliminations, which would allow them time to get other work or training.
The act also requires notification to the state and top local officials, typically the county judge.
Alisha Curtis, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Commerce, said state law bars the Workforce Services Division, with limited exceptions, from disclosing any information it receives from employers, including notifications under the act.
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Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde didn't immediately return messages left through his representatives.
Word of the job cuts came at a meeting Tuesday of the lease and consultant selection committee of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission, which oversees Clinton National.
Michael Price, vice president of business development for HMS Host who appeared by telephone at the meeting, said he was unable to immediately confirm the number of employees who would be let go, but said the pandemic's effects on HMS Host and the rest of the travel industry has exceeded that of the September 2001 terrorist attacks and the 2008-2009 recession.
"Originally, we did not expect this to go as long as it did," he said. "We don't think anybody did."
Total job cuts in the company number in the thousands as the travel industry struggles.
Bill Walker, a member of the commission's lease and consultant selection committee, took issue with the commission not being made aware of the job losses, which are happening as the airport has granted HMS Host and other airport tenants financial concessions to help them cope with the fallout from the pandemic.
HMS Host is among the tenants from which the airport has relaxed the minimum financial guarantees included in most airport contracts. For Host, that amounted to about $47,500 per month to the airport. Under the relaxed rules, Host pays only a percentage of actual revenue every month, which amounted to $9,733 in August.
"This is something that's important for the commission to focus on because while we're giving relief, however much it is, they're running everybody out of here home," Walker said.
Walker also pressed top airport executives to be more aggressive on the mix of restaurants that are open in the airport.
For now, two restaurants are open: Chili's, a sit-down restaurant, and Great American Bagel, both of which are on the concourse and beyond the security checkpoint. Airport staff members say they expect the Starbucks' outlet, also on the concourse, to be reopened by month's end.
Bryan Malinowski, the airport executive director, after working with Host, suggested other restaurant reopenings be tied to increases in passenger traffic.
Once boardings reached 65% to 70% of pre-pandemic levels, the Burger King would reopen. The Riverbend restaurant, would be reopened once boardings reached 75% to 80%, according to a document he provided the committee. Chick-fil-A and the Starbucks in the baggage claim area wouldn't reopen until boarding levels reached 85%, or nearly 80,000 boardings a month.
If that proposal was adopted, "you could say good-bye to Chick-fil-A," Walker said, saying it could take as many as two years for passenger boardings to reach 85% of pre-pandemic levels.
He also said he preferred Chick-fil-A to be reopened sooner rather than later because he believed the popular restaurant would generate more revenue for the airport.
But airport executives said the franchise is more expensive to operate than other airport restaurants and Chick-fil-A would require three months of staff training before it can reopen.