Passenger traffic down 2.1 percent last month at McCarran

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010 | 10:54 a.m.

Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport last month was down 2.1 percent compared to December 2008, airport officials said today.

The airport reported that 3,097,382 passengers arrived at or departed from the airport last month. That's down from 3,164,245 passengers a year earlier.

A month earlier, the airport saw a 0.1 percent increase in passengers compared to November 2008.

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

Southwest Airlines, the busiest carrier at McCarran, saw a 5.7 percent increase in passengers in December 2009 compared to a year earlier. The airline finished the year down 1.1 percent compared to 2008.

The second-busiest carrier, US Airways, saw half as many passengers in December as year earlier and was down 34.9 percent for the year. US Airways has cut jobs at McCarran and trimmed its flight schedule.