McCarran airport reports 4 million passengers for second straight month

Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport continued to soar in August as the Clark County Department of Aviation on Friday reported a 7.2% increase over a year ago, hitting 4 million passengers for the second straight month.

August numbers brought the 2015 total to 30.1 million passengers, 4.9% ahead of 2014's pace.

When McCarran reached 4.1 million passengers in July, it was the first time since March 2008 the airport hit the 4-million-passenger plateau. The all-time monthly record of 4.3 million came in August 2007.

Totals were driven by a 7.8% increase in domestic traffic to 3.6 million, much of that as a result of a 27.4% increase in passengers at Spirit Airlines, a 7.8% uptick by American Airlines and a 6.5% bump by market leader Southwest Airlines.

Southwest tallied 1.6 million passengers in August, bringing its eight-month total to 11.9 million, 5.3% ahead of last year's pace. Spirit, undergoing a systemwide expansion, hit 1.8 million passengers to date in 2015, a 19% climb that has made it the fifth-busiest carrier at the Las Vegas airport.

Of the 13 domestic carriers operating at McCarran, only Alaska, Hawaiian and United showed declines for the month.

On the international side, passenger counts continued to level off after two straight years of growth approaching or exceeding double-digit percentage increases. International passenger counts grew 3.3% in August to 314,572 and the eight-month total has hit 2.3 million, up 5.8% over 2014.

Six international carriers had double-digit percentage increases for the month — Edelweiss (40.6% to 6,326), Thomas Cook (38.6% to 9,194) Korean (28% to 8,227) Air Transat (12.2% to 560), Air Canada (10.7% to 55,621) and Aeromexico (10.2% to 27,387).

WestJet continues to be the dominant international carrier in the Las Vegas market, but its August passenger numbers were flat at 93,741 passengers for the month.

The top overseas carriers continue to be Virgin Atlantic with 31,687 passengers in August, down 4% from a year ago, and British Airways, with 27,267 passengers, up 7.7% over last year.

Westside air terminal and helicopter traffic grew fractionally in August with 90,347 passengers, a 0.8% increase. For the year that niche has totaled 645,936 passengers, a 4.3% increase over 2014.