Las Vegas’ McCarran airport maintains record passenger pace in August

McCarran International Airport continued its record-pacing year in August with its 11th straight month of positive passenger growth.

The 4.4 million travelers who passed through Las Vegas’ airport in August were a 3.1 percent increase from the 4.3 million passengers seen the same month last year, the Clark County Department of Aviation announced Wednesday.

The jump in passengers puts McCarran’s 2019 total at 34.8 million passengers, a 3 percent increase over the same time last year.

This year is on pace to be the busiest year in McCarran history and would mark the third straight year the record would be surpassed. Last year’s 49.7 million passengers beat out the previous record of 48.5 million passengers set int 2017.

Spirit numbers taking off

Spirit Airlines continued to see its profile ascend at McCarran, with the ultra low fare carrier seeing 487,162 passengers in August, up 30 percent over the 375,965 passengers served the same month last year. Year-to-date Spirit has handled 4.3 million passengers, a 25.3 percent bump over the 2.7 million passenger seen through the first eight months of last year.

Frontier Airlines also saw strong growth in August with 257,622 passengers. a 33 percent increase over August 2018’s 193,227 passengers.

McCarran’s busiest carrier by volume, Southwest Airlines, saw a decrease in passengers in August with 1.46 million passengers, a 4.3 percent drop from August 2018’s 1.52 million passengers. Last month Southwest officials attributed the 2.4 percent decline in passengers this year to the continued grounding of its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.

The MAX jets were grounded worldwide in March after a pair of deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in November and March, respectively, killed 346 people.

JetBlue dips 15.2%

JetBlue Airlines saw the largest dip in passenger volume of domestic carriers in August with the 97,221 passengers, representing a 15.2 percent dip from the 114,672 passengers seen in August 2018.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.