Las Vegas airline capacity jumps 12.5 % from ‘98

Thursday, Nov. 11, 1999 | 11:02 a.m.

The number of seats on planes coming into Las Vegas is up 12.5 percent from October 1998. That's the greatest year-over-year increase since the city's 1993-94 growth boom.

The emergence of Las Vegas-based National Airlines, which started flying in May, and the transformation of Sun Country Airlines from a charter operation to a scheduled carrier in July are the biggest reasons for the double-digit increase, a McCarran International Airport spokesman said.

But nine other airlines added routes, increased flight frequencies or began using larger planes in October to boost numbers even higher. Only two airlines cut service in October while 14 made no changes.

"There were some 20 percent growth months in 1994," said Scott Russell, who helps prepare a flight activity summary for McCarran each month. "But this month, we had a pretty significant leap."

Several reasons were behind the sudden boost in October:

* Fall is a strong tourist season for Las Vegas because the weather is more favorable. Convention business is strong in the fall months.

* Airlines make a number of schedule changes in October to prepare for seasonal travel, holidays and to readjust timetables when daylight-saving time ends. Some states, including Arizona, don't observe the annual practice of setting clocks back in October.

* In general, the airline industry is quite healthy today. More people are flying, not just to Las Vegas, and airlines are scrambling to allocate their seats in the markets where they'll do the best. Las Vegas happens to be one of those markets because many people want to see the new resorts that have opened recently.

Most of the changes in arriving seats occurred in long-haul markets -- flights from east of the Mississippi River -- where the number of seats was up 36.3 percent to 18,517 over October 1998 and up 4.6 percent over September 1999.

Short-haul seats on flights from west of the Mississippi increased 5.1 percent to 42,670 over last year and up 1.6 percent from September.

The number of seats from international destinations was down from over a year ago, but up from September. Currently, 860 seats come into the market on average each day, down 12.6 percent from October 1998, but up 14.8 percent from September.

The number of international seats was down from last year due to City Bird of Belgium, Mexicana and Canadian airlines leaving the Las Vegas market. But the international market grew in October with the addition of a new weekly Japan Airlines flight from Tokyo.

Sun Country Airlines, a Minneapolis-based carrier, averages only five flights a day, but its changes resulted in the biggest jump in the number of seats coming into the market. Sun Country added four weekly flights to both Detroit and Milwaukee and began using larger planes on some of its existing routes. The net result: a daily average increase of 385 seats.

National Airlines, which added two daily flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to increase to 17 daily operations, created an average increase of 350 new seats.

Other increases:

Only two airlines decreased service in October.

American Eagle, the American Airlines commuter carrier, reduced service from Los Angeles from five to four daily flights for a decrease in 34 average daily seats.

And, America West Airlines, the No. 2 carrier at McCarran with 79 daily operations, decreased service from Baltimore and Kansas City by one flight a week each. That and some minor equipment changes resulted in a reduction of 11 daily seats on average.

The airport's top passenger carrier with 144 daily flights, Southwest Airlines, and American Airlines, which took over Reno Air in August, had no flight changes in October.

By the number of seats it brings into the market, Southwest has the top share with 31.3 percent, 19,444 of 62,047 total seats; America West has 18.6 percent, United has 10.1 percent, Delta Air Lines has 8.3 percent and American has 8.2 percent. National Airlines, which has an aggressive growth plan for 2000, is poised to crack the top five with a 4.8 percent market share.