Bankrupt airlines have Las Vegas presence

Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005 | 9:47 a.m.

Delta and Northwest are classic "hub-and-spoke" carriers with most flights linking Las Vegas to their respective hub airports. From those hubs, passengers can catch flights to most cities on their route maps, domestically or internationally.

Delta, the nation's No. 3 commercial air carrier, has the fifth highest market share at McCarran International Airport, providing 5.5 percent of the 77,406 seats that come into the market every day.

The airline currently has 21 flights a day between Las Vegas and seven destinations.

Most of Delta's Las Vegas flying connects the city to the airline's hub airports -- Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Cincinnati.

Delta also operates Song, a low-cost subsidiary that flies between major population centers and resort areas. Song flights operate between Las Vegas and New York, Boston, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.

Delta's operation in Las Vegas is characterized by its use of large aircraft. For example, American Airlines, which has more flights in and out of Las Vegas than Delta, provides a smaller percentage of seats into the market than Delta. That's because many of Delta's flights use Boeing 767 wide-body jets and high-capacity Boeing 757s. Song, in fact, uses a the twin-engine 757 jets exclusively.

Northwest, meanwhile, ranks seventh in market share of seats at McCarran, with 15 flights a day to seven destinations and 3.3 percent of the seats into the market.

The airline offers six flights a day to its Minneapolis headquarters, four a day to its Detroit hub, one to its Memphis, Tenn., hub and one each to Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Los Angeles, a flight that accommodates overseas travelers coming to Las Vegas. Northwest also recently added four flights a week to and from Flint, Mich.

In October, the company plans to offer flights between Las Vegas and Des Moines, Iowa; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Grand Rapids, Mich., and Madison, Wis. Whether those flights would still be added in light of the bankruptcy filing hasn't been disclosed by the airline.