Flyers at LR airport under 1 million in ‘20
Fewer than 1 million passengers passed through the doors of Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field in 2020, the lowest number in decades.
The state’s largest airport has hosted, with few exceptions, more than 2 million passengers annually since the 1995, but the covid-19 pandemic resulted in the collapse in air travel.
Last year, 977,342 passengers arrived at or departed from Clinton National, according to the latest data. The figure represented a 56% plunge from the 2,241,716 passengers in 2019.
Air travel continues to rebound from its April lows, but the trend is only modestly better. In December, 85,644 passengers went through Clinton National, a 53.5% drop from the 184,171 who went through it in 2019.
Northwest Arkansas National Airport in High-fill, which has a passenger mix that includes more business travelers than Clinton National, has seen a steeper drop in passenger traffic.
In 2020, passengers arriving and departing at Northwest National fell to 721,107, a 61% dip. The 51,234 passengers in December marked a nearly 66% decrease from the same month in 2019.
Western Union joins Walmart on services
Walmart Inc. will start offering Western Union money transfer service this spring, the companies said Tuesday.
Western Union, widely known for making cross-border, cross-currency transfers and payments, will offer these services at all of Walmart’s more than 4,700 U.S. stores.
Through Western Union, customers of the Bentonville-based retailer can send money to 200 countries and territories worldwide. The funds will be paid out within minutes at more than 550,000 retail sites or into billions of bank accounts, wallets or cards.
Most of Walmart’s financial services are aimed at customers who don’t have bank accounts or other banking relationships.
Walmart also offers international money transfers through a partnership with MoneyGram. Wire-transfer services as well as banks charge commission fees on transactions.
State index up 1.88,
ends day at 516.52
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Tuesday at 516.52, up 1.88.
“Stocks closed higher on Tuesday after U.S. treasury secretary nominee Janet Yellen pushed for a substantial fiscal relief package that could help pull us out of the pandemic-driven slump along with a nice rally in financials after Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan topped analysts’ earnings expectations,” said Chris Harkins, managing director at Raymond James & Associates.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.