Arkansas Transportation
Metro Little Rock provides industries with convenient and affordable access to a myriad of distribution channels and the luxury of importing and exporting materials and goods by land, sea or air.
Air
The significant growth at Little Rock National Airport is increasingly catching the attention of airlines, resulting in more direct flights to business centers like Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Newark and St. Louis. Darryl Jenkins, director of the aviation institute at George Washington University has said that for its size, Little Rock may well have the best air service in the nation.
In addition to serving private and commercial aircraft, Little Rock National Airport is home to Dassault Falcon Jet and Hawker Beechcraft, two of the South’s major aerospace corporations. Freight carriers such as UPS also utilize Little Rock National for daily air freight transportation into and out of Little Rock.
Water
The Port of Little Rock offers affordable freight transport conveniently located near major interstate I-40 and I-30 and Little Rock National Airport. The Little Rock Port Authority Railroad connects the Port of Little Rock to the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) rail lines.
Little Rock is a designated Foreign Trade Zone – 14 and a United States Customs Point of Entry. An on-site, 104,000-square-foot warehouse is on-site so that foreign goods can be stored and processed at the port until products are finished, sold or moved.
The Little Rock Port Authority is also the site of a 2,550-acre industrial park and a harbor for loading and unloading cargo.
Rail
The Metro Little Rock area enjoys nationwide and international freight and passenger rail service from Amtrak, Union Pacific Railroad and BNSF, while the Arkansas Midland Railroad and Little Rock Western serve industries and towns across the state.
Highway
The Metro Little Rock region is a corridor for I-40, one of the nation’s most-traveled trucking routes. Interstates I-30 and north/south I-55 also pass through Little Rock.
The Metro Little Rock area also makes full use of the advanced and efficient Arkansas State Highway system. The state’s expansive network of highways creates easy access routes to the Interstate system.
Major trucking lines in Arkansas include Con-Way, Old Dominion Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt, ABF Freight System and Wal-Mart Stores.