Northwest Airlines inaugurates nonstop service between two cities

Showgirls in skimpy costumes and greeters in Roman attire welcomed the 161 passengers arriving at McCarran International Airport on Flight 78. The Boeing 747 took off 9 hours and 45 minutes earlier from Tokyo's Narita Airport, the first scheduled nonstop service between the two cities.

The fact that Las Vegas' 30 million annual visitors include 400,000 Japanese was not lost on tourism officials here.

Nor was the fact that the new service opens up one-stop service to other key Asian markets via Tokyo.

"The new direct route will be a big boost to Las Vegas and the tourism industry in Nevada," Sen. Richard Bryan said before the flight's arrival.

"This is an important new route for Northwest, for Las Vegas, for Japan, and the seven Asian markets beyond Japan which will now have one stop access to one of the most popular and attractive entertainment markets in the U.S.," said Chris Clouser, Northwest senior vice president of administration.

The addition of the twice-weekly nonstop service comes a month after Bryan convened a meeting of airline and hotel executives to discuss beefing up the city's air service.

Las Vegas is currently looking for new ways to fill its current inventory of 105,000 hotel rooms, plus another 20,000 scheduled to come on line in the next two years.

The Tokyo-Las Vegas flights are "another step towards ensuring that air service in Nevada keeps pace with the rooms that are being added" in Las Vegas, Bryan said.

Bryan, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, met with Northwest officials and hotel executives prior to the arrival of Monday's inaugural flight.

Flight 78 was showered with two water canons as made its way to the gate. Then a stewardess appeared in an opening above the plane's cockpit, waving American and Japanese flags.

Jonathan Tomaz Takamori, director of administration and planning for the Japan Travel Bureau, was on hand with executives of his company to welcome some 70 tourists whose flights were booked through his agency. The company books about 135,000 Japanese tourists into Las Vegas annually.

"Some are getting married here, some are having their honeymoons here, and we have a lot of families coming," said Takamori as a giant screen flashed photos of Las Vegas to the accompaniment of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas."

Takamori said his company's Las Vegas business is up about 5 percent over a year ago. He said the growth rate has dropped in the wake of Japan's economic problems.

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