McCarran traffic off for a second straight month

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 | 11:02 a.m.

Passenger traffic fell for the second straight month at McCarran International Airport, affirming that many would-be travelers stayed home during the Iraq war and the outbreak of the SARS virus.

Traffic was off 2.2 percent to 2.9 million in April compared with the same month a year ago. Most of the downturn was attributable to the November shut-down of Las Vegas-based National Airlines and to slowdowns by air carriers with Asian routes.

National, which had an average 30 flights a day to and from Las Vegas, flew 208,300 passengers in April 2002. Some of the downturn was offset by new-to-Las Vegas carrier JetBlue Airways, which reported 56,680 passengers last month. Other airlines also reported double-digit or triple-digit percentage increases for the month, including America West, US Airways, Sun Country, Frontier and Allegiant, which was up 170.5 percent to 10,424 passengers.

Traffic for Japan Airlines, which flies nonstop routes between McCarran and Tokyo, was down 52.9 percent to 3,034 passengers. Singapore Airlines, which discontinued its nonstop service between Las Vegas and Hong Kong in April, flew only 385 passengers for the month. Singapore wasn't flying to Las Vegas in April 2002.

Two domestic airlines with international routes -- Delta and Northwest -- were down 5.6 percent to 396,266 and 4.4 percent to 312,456, respectively. But United Airlines, which dropped many of its Asian flights in April, had a 1 percent increase in traffic at McCarran to 226,240 passengers.

Southwest and America West continued to dominate the Las Vegas market. Dallas-based Southwest reported 946,982 passengers, a 6.1 percent increase over April 2002, while America West reported a 12.4 percent increase to 497,800 passengers.