Passenger traffic at Las Vegas airport down in October

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, Nov. 30, 2012 | 11:56 a.m.

Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport declined slightly in October for the second month in a row and the fourth time in five months.

Airport officials said today that October traffic fell 1.5 percent to 3.69 million passengers. For the first 10 months of the year, traffic is up slightly, 0.6 percent to 35.2 million passengers.

McCarran had its biggest monthly decline of the year, a 3 percent drop, in September.

Strong international arrivals again offset declines in domestic and air tour numbers in October. Most of the domestic decline can be attributed to so-called legacy air carriers United and Delta Air Lines, which had 9.5 percent and 7.8 percent decreases in passengers, respectively.

McCarran’s busiest operator, Southwest Airlines, showed a 2 percent increase in passengers for the month to 1.4 million passengers.

Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air was down 1.8 percent for the month. But it is one of the biggest gainers for 2012 with 1.9 million passengers, a 10.8 percent increase over the first 10 months of 2011.

International arrivals continue to be the bright spot for McCarran with several domestic carriers controlling capacity by offering fewer seats to most destinations.