McCarran traffic trailing 2000 levels

Friday, Nov. 22, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport was up 12 percent in October over the same month last year, but still trails 2000 levels, airport officials said.

The airport said 3.1 million people arrived and departed at McCarran last month compared with 2.7 million last year -- the first full month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- and 3.3 million in October 2000.

For the first 10 months of 2002 the airport had 29.6 million passengers, a 1.7 percent decline from the 30.1 million that arrived in the first 10 months of 2001 and 30.8 million for the same period in 2000.

Four of the top five carriers serving the airport showed increases from October 2001 to last month. Market leader Southwest Airlines had a 4 percent increase to 908,187 while No. 2 America West was up 23.4 percent to 497,830. The increase was not as dramatic for Southwest because it did not cancel as many flights as America West following the terrorist attacks.

Defunct National Airlines was the No. 3 carrier at McCarran in October with 241,287 passengers, a 20.9 percent increase over a month in which it offered deep discount fares to get people flying after the attacks.