Passenger traffic is approaching 85% of pre-pandemic levels at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, the level at which the airport staff and the concession operator said they would be able to reopen all of the concession offerings.
But airport staff members want to hold off for the rest of this month and August before considering whether to drop pandemic relief funding available to the concessionaire and other tenants at the state's largest airport.
The airport says that like many other entities, the concessionaire, HMS Host, has had trouble filling vacant positions. Also, passenger traffic after a summer burst of activity is expect to level off and even decline and the spike in positive coronavirus cases is giving pause.
The latest passenger statistics available Tuesday showed that 157,079 passengers passed through the airport in May. The number represented about 75% of the total passengers in May 2019.
For the first five months of 2021, traffic totaled 520,820 passengers, which represented 60% of passenger traffic for the same period in 2019, according to the airport.
The federal government has provided another $10.6 million in relief money for Clinton National, taking the total amount of federal aid to $40 million. At least $1 million has to be devoted to tenant relief, according to Bryan Malinowski, the airport's top executive.
Still, an increasing number of members of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission are expressing impatience and want to see a plan in place to open up all concessions to the flying public.
Malinowski said he would hold a workshop next month for commissioners to discuss the information they will need to determine whether HMS Host should open all of its concessions.
For much of the pandemic, Host limited its airport offerings to the Great American Bagel and Chili's. But after prodding from the airport and some members of the commission, Host reopened one of its Starbucks in October and its Chick-fil-A outlet in December.
Host initially resisted reopening the Chick-fil-A until passenger volume returned to 85% of pre-pandemic levels. Other restaurants are to open at lower percentages of pre-pandemic levels.
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.
In May, the latest month for which statistics were available, HMS Host had sales of $334,091, which was 54% of May 2019 sales.
Malinowski said a consultant the airport retained predicted that passenger traffic wouldn't return to 65% of pre-pandemic traffic until the end of 2021.
Bill Walker has led the charge among the commission members to force HMS to reopen all its offerings and restore jobs lost as a result of the pandemic.
But he said the airport's approach isn't working and the concessionaire has no incentive to reopen. HMS Host and its minority partners operate under a 10-year agreement with the airport.
"I don't believe you give relief to somebody that's closed," Walker said at a meeting Tuesday of the commission's lease committee. "They have no cost. The don't have people, they don't have rent, but we're giving them gifts or whatever you want to call it for nothing."
Malinowski said that under federal guidance governing the financial relief the airport is receiving, HMS Host is eligible for relief
But commission chairman John Rutledge and commission member Patrick Schueck said Walker was making some good points and that there needs to be an endgame.
Rutledge, in particular, noted that for several years, the airport employed a consultant to measure passenger satisfaction with their experience at Clinton National, including its concession offerings.
"It's a reflection on our responsibility" that the concessions aren't all open, he said.
Malinowski said he plans to hold a workshop next month to discuss how to move toward opening all the concessions, taking into account all the latest federal guidance on how the relief money can be spent.