Passenger count soars at McCarran during February

A Southwest jet takes off as Mexican airline Volaris makes its arrival at McCarran International Airport on March 30, 2011.

Strong international air traffic and the benefit of an extra day in the month pushed McCarran International Airport’s passenger totals to the highest percentage increase in five months, as 3.1 million people passed through the airport’s gates in February.

The Clark County Aviation Department said Thursday that passenger traffic increased 6.6 percent over February 2011, with double-digit percentage increases by six international carriers and a strong performance by Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air.

Great Britain’s British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, Canada’s WestJet, Korean Air and Mexican airlines Aeromexico and Vivaaerobus posted double-digit percentage increases over February 2011. Mexico’s Volaris started service in March 2011, adding even more to 2012’s international total.

Overall, McCarran’s international traffic was up 21.7 percent, to 212,508 passengers.

Allegiant, which has 25 percent more flights than it had a year earlier, saw its numbers climb 26.3 percent to 175,928 passengers, making it the fourth-busiest airline at McCarran.

Leap Year resulted in an extra day of traffic this February, but passenger totals for the month would have been higher even without it. Based on the average number of passengers per day, February traffic still would have been up about 2.9 percent without the extra day.

Three of the five busiest carriers at McCarran had higher numbers in February. The city’s busiest operator, Southwest Airlines, reported 1.2 million passengers, 2.7 percent more than a year earlier, and No. 3 American Airlines had 181,934 passengers, a 6.2 percent increase. Southwest’s totals don’t include passenger counts from AirTran, which merged with Southwest last year.

No. 2 Delta and No. 5 US Airways, which both had fewer flights in February than they had a year earlier, had 5.5 percent and 11.8 percent fewer passengers, respectively.

For the first two months of the year, McCarran traffic was up 3.3 percent to 6.3 million passengers.

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