January enplanements up at XNA, down in Little Rock and Fort Smith

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Traffic was down in the first month of the year at two of Ar­kansas’ three busiest airports.

On the heels of a record-setting 2017, Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill, enplanements—or outbound passengers— totaled 52,184 in January, a 5.5% increase from the same month in 2017.

XNA is the state’s second-largest airport, and saw a record 725,284 enplanements last year. That was an increase of 3.66% from the previous record total of 699,487 in 2016. XNA”s first full year of traffic was 1999, and the airport posted eight con­secutive years of enplanements gains before seeing a decline in 2008. There was also a decline from 2010 to 2011 before the current streak of gains for six consecutive years.

January enplanements at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock totaled 68,585, a dip of 1.57% from Jan­uary 2017.

January enplanements at Fort Smith Regional Airport to­taled 6,216, down 2.7% from 6,391 in January 2017.

ARKANSAS RIVER TRAFFIC UP 2%
According to information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers, traffic through the first month of 2018 on the Arkansas River (McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System) to­taled 890,771 tons. That’s up 2% compared to the January peri­od of 2017, and is the highest January total since 2015, when ac­tivity level on the river totaled 895,554 tons.

Inbound tonnage on the Arkansas River in January totaled 287,700 tons, down 19% compared to the same month last year. Outbound tonnage was up 13% to 428,017 tons. Internal ton­nage (tons shipped between ports on the river) totaled 175,054 tons, a 24% increase from January 2017

Sand/gravel/rock shipments in January totaled 226,854 tons, up 40% from January 2017. Shipments of chemical fertilizer to­taled 199,631 tons, off by 34% from the previous year. Soybeans were also big movers, with 170,800 tons, up 27%.

ATA: JANUARY TONNAGE UP 2%
The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) For-Hire Truck Ton­nage rose 2% in January, following a 0.3% decrease in December.

Compared with January 2017, the index jumped 8.8%, which was above December’s 7.5% year-over-year gain. For all of 2017, the index increased 3.8% over 2016.

The Cass Freight Shipments and Expenditures Indexes extend their run of positive year-over-year compari­sons.

January shipments came in at 12.5% higher compared to the same month of 2017. Freight expenditures, or the total amount spent on freight, rose 14.2% over the year-ago period of January 2017. According to Donald Broughton, a chief market strategist and senior transportation analyst with Avondale Partners, who provides economic analysis for the Cass Freight Index, ship­ments first turned positive 16 months ago, while expenditures turned positive 13 months ago.

U.S. RAIL TRAFFIC DROPS
Total U.S. railroad traffic in January was 1.21 million car­loads, down 3.4% from January 2017, according to the Associa­tion of American Carloads (AAR). Intermodal units (Contain­ers and trailers) in January totaled 1.31 million, up 3.5% from the same month last year. Combined there were 2.52 million U.S. carload and intermodal originations in January, up 0.1% from January 2017.

Click here for a PDF of the February 2018 Arkansas Transportation Report.