LV daily airline flight count increases slightly to 447

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 11:07 a.m.

Three airlines offering flights to McCarran International Airport made slight increases in their service in August, offsetting minor reductions by four other carriers and keeping the number of seats coming into Las Vegas above last year's levels.

Las Vegas had an average net increase of just over two commercial flights a day to 447 in August. Those included some increases in daily operations and some decreases in operations that don't occur every day.

The number of seats coming into the market is important to the Las Vegas casino industry because 46 percent of the city's visitors arrive by plane. Analysts watch capacity and what percentage of planes are filled to project future visitation and gaming revenue.

The average number of seats coming into the market increased 0.66 percent, from 64,820 to 65,249 from July to August.

Most of the increase was attributable to four new flights, two added by Southwest Airlines, the market leader in Las Vegas, and one each by Northwest and Vanguard Airlines.

Southwest added a new nonstop flight to and from Tampa and a third daily nonstop to and from Austin, Texas. Northwest added a fifth nonstop flight to its hub and headquarters city of Minneapolis.

Also adding service to Las Vegas: fledgling Vanguard Airlines, which doubled its Las Vegas presence with a second daily nonstop flight to and from its Kansas City base of operations.

Southwest now has 167 flights a day to Las Vegas giving it a 37.4 percent market share, more than twice the number of its nearest rival, America West Airlines.

America West was among the four airlines that shuffled their schedules and reduced service to Las Vegas in August. The Tempe, Ariz.-based company, which confirmed it plans to cut seven flights to seven cities from Las Vegas in September and October, eliminated a flight that operated three times a week between McCarran and Houston Intercontinental Airport.

US Airways, which is in the process of revamping its strategy in the wake of a failed merger with United Airlines, cut one of its three daily nonstop flights between Las Vegas and Philadelphia last month.

Mexicana Airlines reduced its service between Las Vegas and Guadalajara, Mexico, from four times a week to twice a week and Mesa Airlines, which operates as America West Express, eliminated its flights that operated six times a week between Las Vegas and Bakersfield, Calif.

The Mesa withdrawal eliminates nonstop service to Bakersfield from Las Vegas. Mesa also announced Wednesday that it has signed a code-sharing agreement with Denver-based Frontier Airlines to operate flights as Frontier JetExpress beginning in early 2002. A spokeswoman said there are no immediate plans to fly the company's regional jets under the new Frontier agreement to Las Vegas. The deal does not affect the company's existing relationship with America West.

The number of seats coming into Las Vegas is still greater now than it was a year ago in three market categories. The number of seats on flights arriving from long-haul markets -- those defined as being east of the Mississippi River -- is up 8.2 percent over August 2000 to 20,838 a day.

The number of seats coming from short-haul markets, west of the Mississippi, is at 43,126 a day, up 0.5 percent over the previous year. And, the number coming from international destinations is at an average 1,285 a day, up 1.7 percent over the total a year ago.