Airline adds direct Vegas flights from six cities

Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 | 10:46 a.m.

America West Airlines will step up competition with Las Vegas market leader Southwest and three other carriers by adding six round-trip flights to six cities in March, the airline announced today.

Beginning March 1, America West, the No. 2 commercial passenger carrier serving McCarran International Airport, will add round trips to San Antonio, El Paso and Austin, Texas, as well as Cleveland and the Canadian cities of Edmonton, Alberta and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Tempe, Ariz.-based America West will have 107 daily flights to 47 cities from Las Vegas when the expansion, which is being accomplished with additional flying of existing aircraft, is completed.

The airline will compete with Southwest's three daily flights to Austin with a twin-engine 50-seat Canadair Regional Jet; with Southwest's two daily flights to El Paso with twin-engine Boeing 737 jets of varying capacity; and Southwest's three daily and one six-days-a-week flights to San Antonio with a twin-engine 80-seat Canadair Regional Jet.

America West will compete with Continental Airlines' three daily flights and one five-days-a-week flights to Cleveland with a twin-engine 124-seat Airbus A319 jet. It will compete with Alaska Airlines' one daily flight and Canadian carrier HMY Airways' twice-weekly service on the Vancouver route with an 80-seat regional jet. The service to Edmonton, also on an 80-seat regional jet, is a new nonstop market from Las Vegas.