Las Vegas To Break Passenger Record, Nears Maximum Capacity

In the next few days, Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport is going to release the final passenger figures for 2022, and it is expected that the total number of travelers that passed through the main Nevada airport will be the highest in its history.

Passenger numbers had peaked in 2019 at 51,537,638 before seeing a sharp drop due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions to travel that eventually led to many casino resorts on the Strip to shut down for a few months. But after a 57% drop in 2020, the traffic rebounded and the figures for 2022 are expected to be close to 53 million, Clark County Department of Aviation Director Rosemary Vassiliadis told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“Las Vegas has rebounded faster than any other airport in the country, said Joel Van Over, Senior Director for consultancy company Ailevon Pacific, during a presentation to the Board of Directors. “During 2022 three extra airlines have started flights to the airport, adding 310,000 annual seats.”

There are 36 new markets that have seen the activation of a new non-stop connection to Las Vegas during the past year — 17 of which are domestic.

Capacity Limit To Be Reached by 2030

Long-term forecasts are notoriously tricky, especially in aviation, but if the current trend continues it is expected that the airport will hit its maximum theoretical capacity of between 63 and 65 million passengers per year around 2030.

“In having our consultants work on all of that, we know if everything goes perfectly, with our rate of sustainable growth, we feel that we’re going to start getting hit with delays on the airfield by the end of 2029 or maybe by 2030,” Vassiliadis told the Review-Journal. “Unfortunately, it means painful years for airlines and that we need a second commercial airport.”

“It is a problem that most airports will be envious of”, said Oliver Lamb, managing director at Ailevon Pacific. But problems are still problems and solutions will have to be found quickly.

The short-term solution needs to be found in making better use of the existing facilities: the airport needs to incentivize airlines to fly at off-peak times when the airport is less congested, but that is not always easy as airlines are striving to optimize their schedule and fly to their hubs to maximize connections.

Another strategy is to privilege airlines that serve Las Vegas as a destination instead of encouraging connections at Harry Reid International, but there are already carriers basing aircraft and crews in Las Vegas. The airport could also structure its charges to favor the usage of larger aircraft, like other constrained airports have done in the past, to optimize Nevada’s airspace and increase the number of passengers per movement. Already in February 2023, there will be 10% more seats available at the airport with an increase of only 1% in the number of flights, and this is thanks to the use of larger aircraft by operating carriers.

This strategy would also increase the likelihood that private aviation traffic will start using other facilities, like the Henderson Executive Airport, freeing up space at Harry Reid, although its executive terminal located just a few miles away from the heart of the Strip is too big an attraction for well-heeled customers wanting to live it up in Las Vegas.

Plans For New Airport

The long-term solution to this capacity problem is the construction of a new airport, the so-called Southern Nevada Supplementary Airport (SNSA). Due to be located between the villages of Jean, N.V. and Primm, N.V. in the Ivanpah Valley, this new airport is planned to be built approximately 30 miles south of the current airport, following a project that had already been approved in 2000, with its completion date initially projected for 2017.

However, the drop in traffic caused by the 2008-2009 recession convinced Clark County to put the project temporarily on hold. Currently, the project is going through a very long phase to asses its environmental impact, and the County does not expect it will be possible to have the new structure operational before 2037. This would leave a period of 6-7 years that will see Harry Reid operate at capacity or above, with crowded terminals, chronic delays, and unhappy airlines and passengers.

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Vanni Gibertini

Vanni fell in love with commercial aviation during his undergraduate studies in Statistics at the University of Bologna, when he prepared his thesis on the effects of deregulation on the U.S. and European aviation markets. Then he pursued his passion further by obtaining a Master’s Degree in Air Transport Management at Cranfield University in the U.K. followed by holding several management positions at various start-up carriers in Europe (Jet2, SkyEurope, Silverjet). After moving to Canada, he was Business Development Manager for IATA for nine years before turning to his other passion: sports writing.

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