McCarran International Airport sets passenger record in July

July marked the busiest month in McCarran International Airport’s history with 4.32 million airline passengers, topping a record set 10 years ago, the Clark County Aviation Department reported Monday.

Having five full weekends of July helped to shatter the previous single-month record of 4.3 million passengers, set in August 2007, airport spokesman Chris Jones said.

“These numbers reflect a continuation of the strong Las Vegas demand we have seen from our air carrier partners over the first half of this year,” Jones said. “Barring anything unexpected, I don’t foresee things slowing down much until we get closer to the end of the calendar year.”

July also marked the fifth consecutive month that the nation’s eighth-busiest airport logged more than 4 million passengers, with traffic growing by 3.8 percent compared to July 2016.

County aviation director Rosemary Vassiliadis said this year that she believes McCarran International is on track to break the airport’s annual record of 47.8 million airline passengers, set in 2007.

More than 3.91 million travelers boarded or arrived on domestic flights last month, a 3.9 percent jump from a year earlier. International flights arriving or departing McCarran carried 318,920 travelers, a 2.4 percent increase from 2016.

Year-to-date, 28.1 million passengers flew in or out of the Las Vegas airport, a 2.4 percent increase from the same period last year.

Air Canada had a 2.8 percent increase in traffic with 70,794 passengers last month, while Canadian carrier WestJet was up 2.4 percent with 76,587 passengers.

Virgin Atlantic Airways reported a 1.2 percent increase in traffic with 26,222 passengers. British Airways carried 26,433 passengers in July, a 8.9 percent decrease from last year, while British competitor Thomas Cook Airlines was up 91.8 percent with 16,698 passengers.

Korean Air was up 23 percent with 10,596 passengers. Chinese budget carrier Hainan, which launched service in December, reported 4,202 passengers.

Mexican carrier Interjet reported a 68.4 percent jump to 17,328 passengers in July, while Aeromexico had a 34.8 percent decline to 18,016 passengers. Volaris reported a 26.1 percent drop in July to 17,322 passengers compared with the same period a year earlier.

Contact Art Marroquin at amarroquin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0336. Follow @AMarroquin_LV on Twitter.