‘It’s an untapped market’: New top airport official wants flights from Las Vegas to this country

While declines are always a concern, Clark County’s new director of aviation is convinced that passenger counts are cyclical and that a rebound can occur later this year and next year.

Harry Reid International Airport, like Las Vegas overall, is in the midst of a visitation slump.

Over the past six months, passenger volume at Reid International has been down from comparable months in 2024. For the year so far, Reid passenger volumes are off 4.4 percent from a year ago to 32.4 million passengers.

“As we’ve seen in the past, Las Vegas tends to be on the front of the downturn, but they’re also at the very forefront during the recovery,” James Chrisley said. “So if we see this as normally cyclical, once things stabilize, either politically or economically, we expect a quick, fast return. When, I can’t say that, but the sooner the better, for sure.”

Chrisley, most recently senior director of aviation for Clark County, took his new role of director Friday, succeeding retiring Rosemary Vassiliadis.

The Clark County Department of Aviation oversees general aviation airports Henderson Executive Airport and North Las Vegas Airport in addition to Reid. It also monitors Jean Sport Aviation Center and Perkins Field in Overton.

Under terms of the contact approved by the Clark County Commission, Chrisley will be paid an annual base salary of $290,000 a year, a wellness benefit allowance of $6,000 a year, a general expense allowance not to exceed $12,000 a year and payment of retirement benefits.

Chrisley and his team will jump right into airline recruitment this month as it joins the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority at Routes World 2025 in Hong Kong Sept. 24-26.

Bring on Japan

After some recent successes in attracting Aer Lingus with flights between Dublin, Ireland, and Las Vegas, and a January “tryout” period involving Air France on flights between Paris and Las Vegas, Chrisley has his eye on a market that, in the late 1990s, once existed for two airlines — Japan.

“It would be great to have Japan,” Chrisley said. “It was tried many years ago, but it would great to get that back. I think it’s an untapped market.”

Nonstop flights between Tokyo and Las Vegas first existed when Northwest Orient – which later was absorbed by Delta Air Lines – flew Boeing 747 jumbo jets on the route twice a week. When competitor Japan Airlines added a similar route, there wasn’t enough market to support both carriers.

Now, 2½ decades later, MGM Resorts International is building a casino resort in Osaka and researchers are studying whether a link between Japan and Las Vegas is feasible.

Korean Air currently operates the only nonstop flights between Asia and Las Vegas with its daily service between Seoul, South Korea, and Reid.

More airport lounges

Chrisley also is focused on the customer experience at Reid and is excited about the growth of passenger lounges at the airport, with more to come.

“These concepts of unbelievable, the phenomenon of the insatiable demand for these airport lounges,” he said. “We opened a Capital One lounge in the D gates a few months ago. Within a week, they (passengers) were lined up outside the door. It’s just unbelievable that the way these are marketed and what the customer is demanding and they want it.”

Chrisley said a new Chase Sapphire Lounge is coming to the C gates by the end of the year and an Amex “sidecar lounge” that will be affiliated with an existing American Express lounge in the D gates.

“It’s going to be a cool concept that we can’t wait to see it out there with the demand being there,” he said.

He said airlines have been negotiating for space to develop more lounges at Reid in the future to expand beyond the six that currently exist.

Years of experience with Southern Nevada’s airspace

Prior to joining the county, Chrisley was a squadron commander at Nellis and Creech air force bases.

“I got to Vegas in 2006, working at Nellis Air Force Base as part of a heavy construction unit called Red Horse,” Chrisley said in a recent interview.

“I got to do that for three or four years, which included deployments to the Middle East. Basically, we’d go and either build Air Force bases or build runways, build aprons for aircraft parking and got to support both (Operations) Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.”

His logistics and engineering experience with the Air Force in Southern Nevada made him an ideal candidate for the Clark County director’s job, with a multimillion-dollar expansion and renovation project on the horizon at Reid Airport in the months ahead and the development of a reliever airport for Reid in the Ivanpah Valley south of Las Vegas over the next decade.

“In the Air Force, the mission is getting airplanes up on and off the airport or off the runway,” Chrisley said. “And guess what? That’s very similar to what we do here. It all begins and ends with those airplanes taking off and landing, bringing guests here. So the mission of those airplanes may be different, but at the end of the day, the idea of those airplanes have to move is the most important thing of what we do in our mission.”

Chrisley acknowledges that it isn’t all about building.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.