Passenger count at McCarran tops 4M for second month in ’15

Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport broke the 4 million mark for the second time this year, all but assuring that the airport that serves Las Vegas will have more passengers in 2015 than last year.

The 4.1 million passengers recorded in October was the highest monthly total this year.

For the 10 months of 2015, traffic is up 5.1 percent to 38 million.

The Clark County Aviation Department reported Tuesday that traffic was up 6.4 percent over October 2014, thanks primarily to a 7.2 percent boost to 3.7 million in domestic traffic. International arrivals were down 1.4 percent to 317,519 for the month.

Airport officials say the international decline should be short-lived with more capacity coming on board by the end of the quarter and into the first and second quarters of 2016.

Among the strongest domestic performers for the month were deep-discounter Spirit Airlines, which increased passengers by 14.8 percent to 262,217, and market leader Southwest Airlines, up 5.4 percent to 1.6 million for the month.

Both carriers have expanded in Las Vegas, Spirit by adding new routes and flights, and Southwest with a mix of new flights and an increase in capacity of planes used on some routes.

Other domestic increases were reported by Frontier Airlines, which added a series of new routes, Virgin America, JetBlue, Delta and Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air.

International arrivals was another story.

Passengers on nonstop flights from foreign soil were down for the first time since November 2013.

While Aeromexico, Edelweiss and Thomas Cook airlines had double-digit percentage increases for the month, Panama-based Copa Airlines was off 45.3 percent to 8,152 passengers after reducing its number of flights from 12 to seven a week and Canadian discounter Westjet, by far the largest carrier of international traffic, was down 6.9 percent to 90,285 passengers.

Westjet traffic is believed to be down because of a dip in the Canadian economy driven by the oil industry.

The major international carriers serving Las Vegas — Great Britain's British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways, Air Canada and South Korea's Korean Air — had small increases in October.

Chris Jones, manager of public affairs and marketing at McCarran, said international carriers plan 1.2 percent more capacity in the fourth quarter compared with a year ago and 3.5 percent more capacity in the first quarter of 2016 compared with the prior year.

Norwegian Air Shuttle began service in late October, Edelweiss will add a fourth Las Vegas flight in the spring and new service was announced last week by Cologne, Germany-based Eurowings, a subsidiary of the Lufthansa group.

Eurowings will begin twice-weekly nonstop round trips Wednesdays and Saturdays between McCarran and Cologne Bonn Airport in western Germany beginning May 4. The airline will use a a 310-seat Airbus A330 jet on the route.

Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Find him on Twitter: @RickVelotta