John Locher / AP
A plane takes off from McCarran International Airport, now Harry Reid International, near the Las Vegas Strip on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021.
Tuesday, April 12, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Las Vegas is home to one of the top 10 busiest airports in the world, according to a report released Monday.
Harry Reid International Airport — which serviced just under 40 million travelers in 2021 — was ranked as the 10th busiest airport in the world, according to Airports Council International, an international airport trade association.
The top seven busiest airports were all in the United States. In order, they were Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, DFW International (Dallas/Fort Worth), Denver International, O’Hare International (Chicago), LAX (Los Angeles), Charlotte Douglas International in North Carolina, and Orlando International in Florida.
After that came two airports in China (at Chengdu and Guangzhou) and then Harry Reid International.
“The ACI World passenger traffic rankings tell the story of an encouraging trend of recovery, with most of the recurrent busiest airports pre-COVID-19 back at the top,” ACI World Director General Luis Felipe de Oliveira said in a statement. “Although we are cautious that recovery could face multiple headwinds, the momentum created by reopening plans by countries could lead to an uptick in travel in the second half of 2022.”
While the passenger count at Harry Reid increased by about 17 million from 2020 to 2021, last year’s figure was still down from the total of more than 51 million passengers from 2019.
Chris Jones, the airport’s top marketing executive, said last month, “I’m not sure we’ll back to 51 million in 2022, but, if not, hopefully we’ll get there the following year.”
