Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Big month for Spirit leads to spike in McCarran’s July passenger numbers

Planes Take Off From McCarran

Steve Marcus

A Spirit Airlines passenger jet takes off from McCarran International Airport June 5, 2017.

Updated Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2019 | 12:52 p.m.

Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport hit an all-time high for the month of July, thanks to a big bump from Spirit Airlines.

Just over 4.5 million passengers arrived at or departed McCarran last month, airport officials said. The number was up about 2% from July 2018, officials said.

While three of the top five airlines that use McCarran reported decreases in July passenger traffic compared to 2018, Spirit saw an increase of more than 32%.

Just over 507,000 Spirit customers passed through the airport last month, up from about 384,000 in July 2018. The bump was partially due to new service routes from Las Vegas to California, Spirit spokesman Stephen Schuler said.

In late June, Spirit added daily service from Las Vegas to Burbank and Sacramento, Calif.

Southwest, United and American all had passenger decreases of at least 6% in July, while Delta showed an increase of nearly 44,000, or about 10%, from July 2018.

In the first seven months of this year, nearly 29.8 million passengers passed through McCarran, up about 3% from the same period last year.