Las Vegas’ airport sees busiest January passenger volume in history

The new year got off to a soaring start for Las Vegas’ airport as it surpassed the 4 million passenger mark in January for the first time.

McCarran International Airport saw 4.15 million passengers — arriving and departing — in January, a 6.6 percent increase over January 2018, the county Department of Aviation reported Thursday.

January also marked the 11th straight month the airport saw at least 4 million passengers go through its gates.

Southwest Airlines was the busiest carrier by volume with 1.3 million passengers, but saw a 6.7 percent dip in passenger volume. The passenger volume drop is tied to the continued grounding of the Boeing Max jets, according to Dan Landson, Southwest spokesman.

Delta, January’s second-busiest carrier at McCarran, saw a 12.8 percent year-over-year passenger increase with 446,994.

Frontier saw a 76.6 percent passenger increase, jumping from 191,895 passengers in January 2018 to 338,798 passengers last month.

The addition of several new routes to and from Las Vegas in the last year is responsible for the significant passenger spike.

“We’re thrilled to continue our tremendous growth in Las Vegas and have added nearly 15 new nonstop routes to McCarran International Airport since January 2019, which has resulted in a more than 100 percent increase in seats year-over-year,” said Zach Kramer, Frontier spokesman.

Despite concerns ramping up over the spread of coronavirus after top U.S. health official Dr. Judith Ford said it was not a question of if, but when the virus would spread in communities, Landson said no domestic travel impacts have been seen by Southwest.

“We haven’t seen any major impacts at this point,” Landson said, though he said he was not able to comment on future bookings.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.