McCarran numbers don’t slack off

Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2005 | 10:12 a.m.

Another month, another record.

McCarran International had its busiest August ever, with 3.88 million passengers making their way through the airport's gates that month.

The 6.7 percent increase over the previous year's total keeps the airport serving Las Vegas on pace for having more than 7 percent more passengers this year than last. For the first eight months of 2005, the airport has seen 29.6 million passengers.

The increase is no surprise, with 9.3 percent more flights hauling 5.9 percent more seats into the market this year over last.

Big increases in passenger counts at America West Airlines and Southwest -- the airport's two market leaders -- offset a 10 percent drop-off at Delta Air Lines.

Delta's passenger count for August fell to 212,413 for the month, thanks to the airline eliminating service between Dallas-Fort Worth and Las Vegas -- three flights a day -- earlier this year. Earlier this month, Delta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York and already has begun paring operations in a bid to return to profitability.

Another bankrupt carrier, United Airlines, showed a 1.2 percent drop in passenger totals, to 270,392. United is down about one flight a day on average from the previous year.

Also showing a drop-off was American Airlines, whose passenger counts fell 4.5 percent to 210,116 in August. American has two fewer flights on average this year than last.

But the drop-offs in passenger traffic were offset by gains at America West -- a 21.3 percent spike to 723,056 passengers -- and Southwest, which was up 5.5 percent to 1.23 million people.

America West, which this week is completing a merger and will become US Airways, has 15 more flights this year than last, while Southwest is up by five over the previous year.

Other impressive gains were shown by Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, which nearly doubled the number of flights it offered a year ago to an average 11 a day, en route to a 53.6 percent increase in passengers to 74,564 for the month.

Midwest Express, Frontier, JetBlue and AirTran Airways also showed double-digit percentage increases in the number of passengers it flew into Las Vegas for the month.

Another carrier that filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, Northwest Airlines, had an 8.8 percent increase in the number of passengers carried to McCarran, to 138,825 people, thanks in part to additional flights to the airport from Indianapolis and Milwaukee.