That figure reflects the number of passengers who arrived and departed from the airport.
McCarran traffic was down 23.3% from May 2019, the most recent comparable year. Through the first five months of 2021, the airport took in 12.1m passengers, a 41.7% decrease from the same period in 2019.
Approximately 1.76m passengers arrived in Las Vegas in May, compared to 1.47m in April. Southwest led all airlines with 630,000 deplaned passengers, followed by Spirit (204,000), Delta (177,000), and Frontier (168,000).
Another 1.76m passengers departed Las Vegas, including 24,267 international passengers (McCarran reports international passenger departures but not arrivals). The number of international travelers who departed McCarran was up 68% from April.
JetBlue reported 1,378 international passenger departures, a 750% increase month-on-month. Most international visitors departing Las Vegas traveled back to Mexico.
JetBlue also saw the largest domestic increase in total passengers, providing air travel for 92,000 passengers in May versus 52,000 in April for a 77% increase.
McCarran passenger volume is a key travel statistic for Las Vegas, which saw 22.2m people pass through the airport in 2020 compared to 51.5m in 2019. McCarran was still the seventh busiest US airport in 2020.
The airport will soon be receiving a new name. The Federal Aviation Administration has greenlighted a name change after former Nevada Senator Harry Reid.
