Airport passenger counts hold steady in January

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Published Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010 | 10:26 a.m.

Updated Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010 | 2:24 p.m.

The number of passengers at McCarran International Airport held steady in January compared to a year earlier, airport officials said today.

Numbers released this morning indicate 3,015,368 arriving and departing passengers used the airport last month. That's down from 3,021,067 passengers in January 2009, which is a decline of 0.2 percent.

Southwest Airlines, the airport's busiest carrier, saw a 6.1 percent increase in passengers last month compared to January 2009. US Airways, now the third busiest carrier, saw a 43.6 percent decline after the airline last year began reducing the number of flights it offers from Las Vegas. The full impact of the airline's cutback is expected to be felt in February.

New No. 2 Delta Air Lines, which added flights and passengers as a result of its merger with Northwest Airlines last year, showed a 9.1 percent increase.

Numbers for the next largest carriers were mostly steady, with United down 2.4 percent, American up 4.7 percent and Continental up 4.9 percent.

A month earlier, passenger traffic at McCarran was down 2.1 percent in December 2009 compared to December 2008. The airport reported that 3,097,382 passengers arrived at or departed from the airport in December.

The number of passengers traveling through the airport last year was down 8.2 percent compared to 2008, from 44,074,642 to 40,469,012.