McCarran rebounding

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001 | 10:51 a.m.

The rebound of air service to McCarran International Airport since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has accelerated, an analysis of new airport statistics suggests.

But the comeback varies dramatically by airline, and some nonstop markets for Las Vegas have come back faster than others.

A comparison of flights and seat capacity coming into Las Vegas between August and November shows that the number of flights arriving at McCarran each day is down 6.7 percent to 417 and seat capacity is off by 7 percent, to 60,680 seats a day since August. The disparity in the percentages suggests that airlines are using more smaller planes than they did before.

Flights arriving from short-haul markets -- cities west of the Mississippi River -- are off by 5.4 percent to 40,763 seats a day, while long-haul capacity is down 9.9 percent to 18,764 seats a day. The number of seats coming from international markets is down 10.3 percent to 1,153 daily seats a day since August.

The number of airplane seats coming into Las Vegas on a daily basis is an average, since many airlines don't offer their flights every day. Currently, there are nonstop flights to 83 markets, two more than there were in August.

While two airlines made significant cuts in their Las Vegas operations -- Phoenix-based America West and Chicago-based United each trimmed 10 daily flights from their schedules -- others have added flights since August.

McCarran, which didn't even tally and post capacity statistics for the months of September and October because the numbers fluctuated so frequently from day to day, said America West now has an average of 73 daily flights, down from 83, and United has 27, down from 37.

Other airlines with fewer flights include National (down six a day to 25), Delta (down two a day to 21), American and Northwest (down one a day to 21 and 11, respectively) and Alaska (down six flights a week to 10 daily flights).

But Southwest Airlines, which analysts have said has weathered the downturn from the terrorist attacks better than any other airline, increased the number of flights it operates at McCarran. Dallas-based Southwest, the carrier with the most operations in Las Vegas, added one daily flight and four weekly operations to increase to 169 daily flights.

Houston-based Continental Airlines also added four flights a week to reach 15 a day.

"These airlines are re-examining their schedules on a constant basis," said Randy Walker, McCarran's top administrator. "It's all a matter of the laws of supply and demand. There are plenty of airplanes out there. If there's demand, I'm sure airlines will use those planes and add flights."

Supply and demand

He explained that the supply-and-demand problem being experienced by airlines serving Las Vegas today is the opposite of the capacity problem that existed in 1998 and 1999, when there was a shortage of available aircraft and airlines tended to neglect the city because they could make a greater profit on business travel routes elsewhere.

Walker theorized that the demand for affordable short-haul flights stayed strong in Las Vegas, while the long-haul carriers ended up cutting fleets and routes. That would explain why Southwest, a dominant short-haul carrier, stayed strong while America West, which had far more long-haul routes, suffered.

And, while a majority of United's Las Vegas flights were short hauls, the company's primary focus is on long flights. The company cut its fleet, retiring a number of gas-guzzling older planes, many of which were used on Las Vegas routes.

Continental's increase bucks Walker's theory. Most of its flights are long hauls and the new flights the airline added are from Las Vegas to Cleveland.

"Nobody came back as quickly as Las Vegas," Walker said of the rebound in traffic, "but a lot of that had to do with discounting. There were a lot of cheap seats out there for people to take a quick vacation, and Las Vegas is a popular destination. In the wintertime, where are you going to go, Las Vegas or Buffalo? That's no offense to the people of Buffalo, but Las Vegas is where people are going to go for a minivacation."

Separately, Sun Country Airlines, Minneapolis, announced a second round of cost-cutting measures Monday, saying it would ground its fleet of gas-guzzling three-engine Boeing 727 jets and end regularly scheduled flights to San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, New York and Washington D.C.

Sun Country specializes in routes linking cold-weather cities with resort destinations. Remaining on the route are Las Vegas and several resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean.

Las Vegas continues to be one of Sun Country's strongest markets, spokeswoman Tammy Lee said Monday, so the company has no plans to reduce service to McCarran.

The airline announced earlier this month that it trimmed 100 of its 1,000 jobs systemwide and ordered wages to be cut 10 percent as the company seeks a buyer.

Not affected

Lee said Sun Country, which has 30 Las Vegas-based employees who were not affected by the layoffs, and its sister company, tour packager Funjet, are "still going strong in Las Vegas," she said. Sun Country has six flights a week to and from Milwaukee, Detroit and Dallas and a daily flight and twice-a-week service to and from Minneapolis.

The company isn't disclosing names of potential buyers of the airline but airline analysts have identified some possibilities. They include Frontier Airlines, Denver; Air Tran, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Minneapolis competitors Champion Airlines and Northwest Airlines and an independent group of buyers headed by George Wozniak of Hobbit Travel, a Minneapolis travel agency.

Terry Trippler, president of Trippler & Associates, a Minneapolis-based airline expert, said Wozniak is meeting today with Sun Country officials to propose a deal involving a group of investors.

Trippler thinks the Wozniak group has the best chance of acquiring the airline and discounts reports of bids by Frontier, Air Tran, Champion and Northwest. He also said it's possible that Sun Country could maintain its current ownership under William La Macchia and return to being an all-charter carrier as it once was.

La Macchia bought Sun Country for a estimated $41 million in April 1997 and converted it from a charter to a scheduled carrier at that time.

A discount carrier that is rebounding at McCarran is Frontier Airlines, which has two daily and five weekly round-trip nonstop flights between Las Vegas and Denver. Frontier's plans to add a daily Denver flight on Jan. 17 would return the airline to pre-Sept. 11 levels.

Frontier also inaugurated service to Reno after the terrorist attacks.

The company recently announced that it would return to service some of its older-model Boeing 737 jets to that are not as fuel efficient as some of its newer planes because demand exists. The reason: Many of Frontier's flights compete head to head out of Denver with struggling United.

Schedule changes

Las Vegas-based National Airlines, operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, also has juggled its schedule since Sept. 11. National has lost access to Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport, which restricted flights from several markets, including Las Vegas. The airport won't allow large planes to land there, creating a problem for National, which only has planes with 175 seats.

To save money, National cut one plane out of its fleet and is operating with one fewer spare than before. It also laid off 270 employees, but has called about 65 of them back.

The company plans to add service between Las Vegas and Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles in response to United trimming flights to those markets. It's also planning to add a new flight to and from Miami Feb. 14.

National said it will deliver a reorganization plan to U.S. Bankruptcy Court next month. In it is expected to be a plan to acquire some smaller aircraft to handle the airline's short-haul flights.