News in brief

Flyers top 1 million so far at LR airport

More than 1 million passengers passed through Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field in Little Rock in eight months of 2021 as air travel continues to recover from pandemic lows.

Through August, Clinton National had 1,082,412 passengers, a level it never reached in 2020, the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

The 2021 total is 62.7% higher than the 641,321 passengers who went through the airport in the same period last year.

And the August total -- 157,914 -- is 99.19% more than the 79,278 passengers that Clinton National had in the same month in 2020.

The numbers remain well below pre-pandemic levels.

In 2019, Clinton National had its 1 millionth passenger two months earlier, in June. And the August 2019 total was 191,559, or 21.3% higher than last month's total.

Northwest Arkansas National Airport at Highfill also continues to see passenger levels increase. The 705,322 passengers passing through in the first eight months of 2021 was 41.8% higher than the same period last year. And last month's total -- 113,539 -- was 122.14% higher than the same month in 2020.

-- Noel Oman

United fined $1.9M for long tarmac stays

WASHINGTON -- United Airlines has been fined $1.9 million over 25 flights in which the plane sat on the ground for several hours, the largest fine imposed by the government for such long delays.

The Transportation Department said Friday that the incidents occurred between December 2015 and February of this year. More than 3,200 passengers were trapped on planes without being given a chance to disembark, the department said.

In a consent order, United said most of the delays involved diversions caused by severe weather, when the airline is focused on making sure that planes land safely. The airline said that it was a small number of the nearly 8 million operated by United and its United Express affiliates over the five-year span of the violations.

United was ordered to pay $950,000. The airline was given credit of $750,000 for compensating passengers on delayed flights and $200,000 for the cost of developing a tool to improve management of diverted flights.

Federal rules require airlines to give passengers a chance to return to the terminal if a plane on a domestic flight sits on the ground for three hours -- four hours for international flights. Exceptions include safety, security, or air traffic control problems.

-- The Associated Press

Index goes up 2.94, closes day at 691.52

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Friday at 691.52, up 2.94.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.

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