Expert sees McCarran maintaining status as one of nation’s busiest airports

SQUAW VALLEY, California — An aviation expert who monitors passenger traffic at airports across the country says McCarran International will maintain its status as the nation’s ninth busiest airport in five years.

Mike Boyd, president and CEO of Boyd Group International, Evergreen, Colorado, said McCarran would continue its torrid growth rate in the next five years, but other airports would grow even faster and push McCarran’s tourism industry rival Orlando International Airport ahead of Las Vegas by 2022.

Boyd announced his airport forecast at the close of the two-day 21st annual International Aviation Forecast Summit at the Resort at Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games.

A representative of McCarran International Airport declined comment on Boyd’s rankings and growth projections, noting that Airports Council International-North America recently listed McCarran as the eighth busiest airport in the United States.

Boyd uses different metrics in calculating its passenger projections.

Boyd has an excellent track record for accuracy in passenger statistics, but he admitted Tuesday that its difficult to predict what will happen in the volatile industry because airlines occasionally will buck trends or try unconventional strategies to get an edge on their rivals.

For example, Boyd said few predicted that Florida-based ultralow-cost carrier Spirit Airlines — a huge growth story in Las Vegas for several years — would make a big play for market share at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport last year.

Those types of moves by airlines can alter passenger counts over time.

“Historically, air travel was assumed to be driven by economic factors,” Boyd said. “That’s changed, but somebody forgot to tell the airlines.

“Air passenger traffic is the result of where capacity is placed, the type of service, the type of airline and other issues.”

In Las Vegas, seat capacity has grown 4.2 percent since September 2015 with Frontier Airlines, Virgin America and Allegiant Air showing double-digit percentage increases in the number of inbound seats.

Allegiant is one of the carriers that has vexed Boyd the most in his forecasts because it doesn’t operate like a traditional airline with its limited weekly operations to more than 100 destinations.

Boyd is projecting McCarran to have 24.5 million enplanements in 2017, which would rank it ninth among the nation’s major airports.

An enplanement is a passenger boarding a departing flight. Most of McCarran’s in-house passenger counts tally arriving passengers as well as those departing, which is why the airport reported a total passenger count of 45.4 million in 2015.

Boyd projects 15.8 percent growth through 2022 for a total of 27.8 million enplanements.

Ten U.S. airports had greater growth rates projected by Boyd in 2022 than Las Vegas.

The fastest-growing airport in the five-year time frame: Los Angeles International, with projected growth of 40.7 percent to 57 million enplanements.

Boyd said the surge in new international routes to Los Angeles would be a big factor in its expansion.

Other big increases are ahead for Newark, New Jersey’s Liberty International Airport, up 30.9 percent, San Francisco International, up 22.3 percent, and Charlotte, North Carolina, 19.9 percent.

The biggest move in the rankings is expected to be made by Orlando, which is forecast to climb 32.8 percent to 28.3 million enplanements.

Boyd said Orlando would benefit from its airport’s size and that it would benefit from being centrally located among several Florida communities.

Boyd said another major milestone should occur by 2021 if his forecasts are on the mark. That year, more than 1 billion passengers will board planes in the United States for the first time in history.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.