Posted at 8:59 a.m., Thursday, May 3, 2007
McCarran airport in Vegas keeps seeing more travelers
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — Nearly 11.3 million passengers used McCarran International Airport during the first quarter of 2007, up 4 percent from the same period during the record-setting year of 2006.The Las Vegas airport, which handled 46.2 million passengers last year, could see almost 48 million arriving and departing passengers this year, Clark County officials reported.
Southwest Airlines remained the busiest carrier at McCarran, handling nearly 3.8 million people during the quarter ending March 31. That was up 2 percent from 2006.
US Airways, the second-busiest carrier at McCarran, posted the largest percentage increase for the quarter, up nearly 25 percent to 2.5 million passengers. Officials said the percentage increase was mainly due to a consolidation in reporting US Airways traffic with America West. The two carriers merged in 2005.
Scheduled traffic at Terminal 2, which handles mostly international flights, increased almost 9 percent during the first quarter to more than 520,000.
McCarran ranked sixth in 2006 on the list of the busiest airports in the U.S., according to the Airports Council International and the federal Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
It ranked as the 11th-busiest airport worldwide in 2006.
On the Web:
Airports Council International: www.airports.org
McCarran International Airport: www.mccarran.com
Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Department of Transportation: www.bts.gov
