New flights to be added to Las Vegas schedule

Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005 | 9:38 a.m.

The destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina has indirectly resulted in Las Vegas getting three additional daily round-trip flights at McCarran International Airport.

Southwest Airlines, Las Vegas' busiest commercial passenger carrier, is redirecting its fleet while reparations occur in New Orleans. The airline recently returned two flights a day between Houston and New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport.

Officials with Southwest, which also has been New Orleans' busiest carrier, decided to reposition its available aircraft to other routes and on Oct. 2 will add a 13th daily round trip to Burbank, Calif., a 14th daily round trip to Oakland and its third daily trip to and from Portland, Ore.

The airline expects to continue the new flights even after traffic returns to New Orleans because of the delivery of new planes to the fleet in the company's fourth quarter. The new Las Vegas flights were among eight new operations announced by the airline on Tuesday.

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