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A rendering of the new sign going up at Tropicana Ave. and Paradise Road for the newly renamed Harry Reid International Airport.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022 | 11:33 a.m.
If the March totals for passenger traffic at Harry Reid International Airport are any indication, Las Vegas is nearly back to pre-pandemic air travel levels.
Last month, the Las Vegas airport recorded over 4.2 million arriving and departing passengers, which was up 66% from March 2021, according to a report released Tuesday by the Clark County Department of Aviation.
The March total was only about 140,000 passengers off from the pre-pandemic March 2019 figure, which represented a record for the month at the airport.
Through the first three months of year, the airport has welcomed just under 10.8 million arriving and departing passengers, which is about 1.2 million shy of what the airport recorded for the first three months of 2019.
In 2019, about 42 million people visited Las Vegas, though that number was cut in half in 2020, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Last year, just over 32 million visited the city.
While domestic visitors — especially from Western states — have been plentiful as the Las Vegas economic recovery has trudged on, tourism officials have been closely monitoring the international visitation numbers.
Last month, just over 154,000 international passengers were recorded at the airport. That was a nearly 800% increase from 2021, but still well off the March 2019 tally of 305,000.
