Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport handled an all-time high of 48.5 million airline passengers in 2017, breaking the previous record set in 2007.
The Clark County Department of Aviation counted increases in both international and domestic flights in reporting the milestone.
Mike Boyd, a Colorado-based consultant for the department, credited the new record to an international “rediscovery of Las Vegas” coupled with a broad recovery in the U.S. economy.
“You’re going to have to get used to the idea that McCarran will continue to break records because Las Vegas is a desirable place to spend money,” he said.
McCarran closed the year with 43.9 million passengers boarding or arriving on domestic flights, a 2.4 percent increase over 2016, and 3.6 million on international flights, up 0.4 percent from a year earlier.
Traffic set new monthly records in July and October, with 4.32 million passengers and 4.33 million, respectively. The year concluded on a high with 3.8 million travelers in December, a 2.2 percent increase year on year, 3.5 million of them arriving or departing on domestic carriers, and 263,241 on international flights, a jump of 5.4 percent.
Market-leader Southwest Airlines logged 18 million passengers for the year, down nearly 1 percent from 2016, but Frontier, Spirit, Sun Country and JetBlue picked up the slack, all reporting gains.
Canada’s Westjet Airlines and Air Canada served most of the international traffic with nearly 1.8 million passengers.
The airport continued to serve its growing customer base with new amenities in 2017, adding designated potty areas for pets, lactation pods where mothers can privately breastfeed their children and hologram “workers” to provide directions.
The number of international gates connected to the D Concourse was doubled at a cost of $51 million, a project that included a link to a new corridor to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection station in Terminal 3.
