Las Vegas airport can take 10m more visitors, officials say

The Las Vegas McCarran International Airport is capable of dealing with 10m more visitors per year, according to aviation officials.

The primary Las Vegas airport, McCarran International has the ability to welcome an additional 10m passengers per year to the city – should infrastructure be ready for it.

Rosemary Vassiliadis, director of the Clark County Department of Aviation made the claim at a chamber of commerce event last week.

“We feel that we can easily accommodate 60m passengers going in and out,” she said.

So what the hold up? It all comes down to hotel rooms according to Vassiliadis and the city of sin currently falls short by some 30,000.

According to most recent figures there are currently around 149,000 rooms throughout the county, with 12,000 expected to be added by 2023. Such means the full inbound potential of Las Vegas is a way off being realised yet.

This hasn’t stopped plans for a new airport however.

In June the Federal Aviation Administration, Bureau of Land Management and the Aviation Department joined to conduct an environmental impact study for a 6,500 acre airport south of Vegas.

“We started working on this in the early 2000s and it takes forever,” Vassiliadis said. “Ivanpah — if everything goes perfectly — we feel we could be operational in 2035. We feel that’s very realistic.”