McCarran International Airport has released their December 2018 passenger numbers along with their 2018 summary, and the Las Vegas airport saw a record 49.7 million passengers over the course of the year. This makes the eighth consecutive year that McCarran has seen record passenger numbers. That’s not all that made this a banner year for the airport: their press release, which you can read on their website, also notes that JD Power ranked McCarran the #1 airport (tied with Orlando) in their North American Airport Customer Satisfaction Survey.
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Most of this growth came in domestic flights, which were up from 43.9 million to 44.8 million, or 2.2 percent from 2017 to 2018. International flights were lower in volume (3.7 million in 2018) but stronger in growth: up 5.6 percent year over year. December also saw a bump over last year, from 3.8 million in 2017 to 3.9 million in 2019.
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The increase in domestic flights was great news for Spirit Air, which saw a whopping 25.1 percent increase in passenger volume from 2017 to 2018. They’re still in fourth place in the airline race, but whereas last year they were over a million passengers behind number three, this year they’re just over 200,000 behind. Southwest saw a slight drop in passengers of 0.1 percent, but with over 18 million passengers in 2018 they’re still the kings of the skies over Las Vegas.
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