McCarran traffic tumbles 12.8 percent in October

By Richard N. Velotta

Published Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008 | 10:45 a.m.

Updated Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008 | 1:39 p.m.

Passenger volume at McCarran International Airport was down by a double-digit percentage from 2007 for the second straight month in October with only five of the 27 scheduled carriers showing an increase in traffic from the previous year.

McCarran officials said 3.6 million passengers arrived and departed at the airport in October, a 12.8 percent decline from the same month a year ago.

The October downturn was not as steep as the 13.2 percent decline reported at the airport in September, which was the worst since the months immediately following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., in 2001.

For the first 10 months of 2008, passenger volume was at 37.7 million, down 6.4 percent from the same period a year earlier.

The October decline was again paced by the results of US Airways, which abandoned its night-hub operation at McCarran in September and is headed toward reducing its flight capacity by half by the end of the year. US Airways’ October numbers were down 29.9 percent to 488,849 passengers in October. For the year, US Airways’ numbers are off 23 percent to 6.2 million.

Of the 27 air carriers that offer scheduled flights to and from McCarran, only five had more passengers in October than they had a year ago, most of them as a result of an increased number of flights.

Airlines with higher numbers include Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, the seventh-busiest operator at McCarran, which was up 4.1 percent to 142,670 passengers for the month.

Others with more passengers over last year included Canada-based WestJet (up 56.5 percent to 56,635 passengers); Virgin America, which inaugurated service in Las Vegas in October 2007 with three flights a day and is now up to 10 (up 284.8 percent to 37,207); Virgin Atlantic (up 5.9 percent to 26,318 passengers); and Mexico-based Aeromexico (up 39.6 percent to 3,246 passengers.

McCarran’s busiest carrier, Southwest Airlines, showed a 5.5 percent decline in October to 1.3 million and for the year is down 1.1 percent to 13.4 million passengers.

While McCarran statistics showed a 31.1 percent decline in scheduled passenger traffic at Terminal 2, where most international flights are counted, the figures are somewhat skewed by two factors: the counts for Hawaiian Airlines and WestJet.

Hawaiian has flights to and from Honolulu and WestJet now has departures to Canada from Terminal 1 and aren’t counted with the other international flights. Removing Hawaiian passengers from the calculation and adding the WestJet figures, international travel was down just 3.1 percent. That decline can be attributed to five international carriers not operating at McCarran in October, including Korean Air, which went on a three-month seasonal hiatus in September.

Another major decline occurred in Terminal 2 charter traffic, which was off 51.8 percent over October 2007.