Passenger traffic at McCarran International Airport showed a fractional increase in May over last year with 3.7 million people passing through terminal gates.
Clark County Aviation Department officials said traffic counts were up 0.3 percent over May 2011, bringing the five-month total to 17.2 million passengers, 2.4 percent ahead of last year.
Southwest Airlines, the busiest carrier at McCarran, carried 1.4 million passengers, 0.9 percent ahead of last year’s pace, but No. 2 Delta Air Lines was down 7.1 percent to 333,388 passengers.
Four domestic carriers had double-digit percentage increases, with Spirit Airlines up 69.4 percent to 156,538 passengers, Sun Country up 51.6 percent to 15,381, JetBlue Airways up 20.3 percent to 99,072 and Virgin America up 18.9 percent to 57,650.
Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, now the No. 5 operator at McCarran, climbed 9.4 percent over last year’s total with 180,734 passengers.
In Terminal 2’s last full month of operation, passengers on scheduled flights were up 11.6 percent to 205,320, bringing the year-to-date total to 959,533, 15.7 percent ahead of last year’s pace.
Charter traffic in the terminal, which is expected to be demolished after this month’s opening of the $4.2 billion Terminal 3, was up 50.2 percent to 15,351 passengers for the month.
International traffic continued to shine at McCarran with Air Canada, British Airways, Condor Flugdienst, Korean Airlines, Thomas Cook Airlines, Vivaaerobus, Volaris and WestJet each showing double-digit percentage increases over May 2011. The only airlines showing passenger declines were XL Airways France, Sunwing, Philippine and Virgin Atlantic.