The busiest week of the year wasn’t enough to save airport passenger numbers, as Las Vegas posted yet another decline in air traffic. It’s the tenth straight month of declines at Harry Reid International Airport.
According to the airport’s November data, traffic was down 9.6% year over year, falling to 4.3 million passengers. That’s a worse month than October, which saw an 8.2% decline. For the last two years, November has been one of the busiest months of the year in Las Vegas thanks to the Formula 1 race held the week before Thanksgiving. But this year, the Las Vegas Grand Prix fell in the same month as the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. During the shutdown, air traffic was cut back at dozens of airports, including LAS, as air traffic controllers went unpaid for weeks.
The biggest declines are coming from Canadian airlines. In 2024, 28% of foreign tourists to the United States were from Canada; this year, that number is down 23%, marking a $4 billion hit to the U.S. economy. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian products initiated a countrywide boycott of travel to the U.S., and it’s been felt particularly hard in Vegas. Air Canada traffic is down 40% to Las Vegas since last year.
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