Airport numbers down 11th straight month

By Richard N. Velotta (contact)

Fri, Mar 6, 2009 (2 a.m.)

Passenger volume declined at McCarran International Airport in January for the 11th consecutive month with traffic hitting the steepest monthly decline since the post-9/11 days.

Airport officials said 3 million passengers passed through McCarran’s gates in January, a 15.7 percent decrease from January 2008. Seat capacity fell 11.6 percent during the same time, indicating the declines are as much about the ailing economy as they are about fewer flights coming into the market.

There are an average 480 scheduled flights a day to the market. At one time, the airport had more than 700 a day.

Of the five busiest airlines serving the Las Vegas market, only Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines showed an increase in the number of passengers coming to Las Vegas. The airline, the No. 5 carrier to the market with an average 20 flights a day, had 170,491 passengers, a 1.9 percent increase over January 2008.

The biggest decline among the top five was No. 2 US Airways, which had 35.5 percent fewer passengers — 412,639 — compared with January 2008. The Tempe, Ariz.-based carrier averages 70 flights a day and last week announced further capacity cuts to Las Vegas by May.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, the market leader in Las Vegas, had 1.1 million passengers in January, a 10.2 percent decline from the previous year. The airline averages 220 flights a day and has 7 percent less capacity than it had a year ago.

Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air and San Francisco-based Virgin America showed the most improvement in passenger counts at the airport.

Allegiant, which specializes in flying between small-city airports and Las Vegas, saw its traffic climb 7.3 percent to 133,860 passengers. Allegiant has done a better job filling its planes, as capacity dropped 5.1 percent from the previous year.

Virgin America, financed in part by Virgin Atlantic Chairman Richard Branson, saw traffic climb 65.8 percent to 36,271 passengers, thanks to a 13.2 percent growth in capacity since 2008.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, passenger counts fell to 2.1 million passengers and monthly totals didn’t climb above the 3 million plateau until March 2002.

September 2001 was McCarran’s worst month when traffic was off 28.3 percent, thanks to three days of no flying immediately after the attacks. Traffic was down 16.3 percent in October 2001, 18.4 percent in November 2001 and 14.5 percent in December 2001.

The declines were by single-digit percentages for the first nine months of 2002.

If passenger counts at McCarran are below 2008 levels in February and March as expected, it will mark the longest string of declines at the airport.