More passenger records are on the horizon for Harry Reid International Airport — a feat that would likely propel officials to build a reliever airport south of Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s aviation consultant, Ailevon Pacific Aviation Consulting, told board members Tuesday the airport can anticipate higher traffic in 2023, after record capacity in 2022.
Joel Van Over, senior director at Ailevon, said capacity in March could be close to the record capacity — around 97,000 inbound seats — recorded in October 2022.
The high level of capacity resulted in record passenger arrivals that month of 5.2 million passengers. It marked the first time the airport welcomed more than 5 million people in one month.
Clark County Aviation Department Director Rosemary Vassiliadis, who also attended the meeting, said the challenge now is balancing the scheduling of arrivals and departures. Vassiliadis said the airport is working with its growing list of airlines serving the airport to “smooth out the peaks” of arrivals.
December passenger volume is expected to be reported later this month, but for the first 11 months of 2022, 48.3 million people — 3.2 million shy of 2019’s all-time annual record of 52.5 million passengers — arrived and departed from Reid.
Vassiliadis said the full capacity of Reid is somewhere around 63 million to 65 million passengers.
The long-term plan to address high levels of capacity is to build a reliever airport in the Ivanpah Valley. The question will become whether that airport could be built in time to handle future capacity numbers.
Vassiliadis said Reid is well-versed in the role of reliever airports, citing the explosive growth of general aviation flights and charters arriving in Las Vegas.
Many of the large aircraft chartered for flights for special events, like games at Allegiant Stadium, park on the west side of the airport and use private terminals. There’s also been a major increase in the number of small corporate jets using parking space on the airport’s west side, and Reid officials have asked those users to fly into Henderson Executive Airport and North Las Vegas Airport.
Formula One will bring the crowds
Even with the local reliever facilities available, Reid is expected to be put to the test in November when Las Vegas hosts the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix race, an event that attracts many wealthy fans with access to private jets.
Van Over said March generally is the midpoint for capacity level into Las Vegas, with half of the months higher and half of the months lower than that month.
Using the March estimate of 96,579 available seats as a base line, Van Over said Reid could expect a 1 percent capacity increase in June, 3 percent increases in May and August, and 4 percent increases in July and October. Declines in capacity are anticipated in February, September, November and December this year.
Van Over is expecting domestic flights to increase 23 percent in capacity in the first quarter and increase by 19 percent in the second quarter. International flights are expected to rise 53 percent in the first quarter and 17 percent in the second quarter, after figures showed it increased 208 percent in the third quarter of 2022 and 90 percent in the fourth quarter.
He said last year three new airlines — Breeze Airways and Canadian carriers Jetlines and Lynx Air — started, or announced they were starting, service to Las Vegas, adding a combined total of more than 310,000 seats annually.
Las Vegas added 36 new markets in 2022, compared with 17 new markets prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. The 36 new markets — 17 of them to previously unserved airports — were added by 10 different airlines and provided an estimated 29,000 seats a week into the market.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at [email protected] or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.
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