3 international airlines ready to begin nonstop flights to Las Vegas

The “international” in McCarran International Airport will be highlighted three times in the next two months, beginning with next week’s inaugural arrival of nonstop flights on Air Berlin from Dusseldorf, Germany.

Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest carrier behind Lufthansa, will offer seasonal nonstop flights twice a week, beginning Thursday. The airline will use Airbus A330 jets with 295 seats on the route.

It will be the second nonstop route between Las Vegas and the European continent. Condor Flugdienst has twice-weekly flights between McCarran and Frankfurt. Two British carriers have scheduled service to and from Great Britain.

Air Berlin will fly the route Thursdays and Sundays. Flights leave Dusseldorf International Airport at 1:55 p.m., arriving 11 hours and 20 minutes later in Las Vegas at 4:15 p.m. The return flights leave McCarran at 6 p.m., arriving in Dusseldorf 10½ hours later at 1:30 p.m. the next day.

The seasonal schedule ends Oct. 22.

Airline officials say the Dusseldorf arrival time will be convenient to transfer to flights to several cities in more than 20 countries. Air Berlin is part of the oneworld airline alliance and has a code-share partnership with American Airlines.

McCarran and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority officials are expected to have a welcoming ceremony when the first flight arrives Thursday.

The Air Berlin flights will arrive at the Terminal 2 international gates until the end of June when international arrivals will shift to the new Terminal 3 facility.

The Air Berlin arrival will be the first of three new international flights to McCarran.

Dutch carrier ArkeFly begins seasonal nonstop service between Amsterdam and Las Vegas beginning June 7. Those flights will operate through Oct. 18.

The leisure carrier, a division of Dutch tour operator TUI Nederland, which is part of Europe’s largest travel conglomerate, TUI Travel, will fly Sundays and Thursdays between Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport and Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif.

ArkeFly will operate the routes with twin-engine Boeing 767 wide-bodied jets configured in three classes with 283 seats.

On the day of the scheduled opening of Terminal 3, June 27, Copa Airlines, Panama’s leading air carrier, will begin nonstop flights between Panama City and Las Vegas, the city’s first international service to Central America.

Copa — an acronym for Compañía Panameña de Aviación — will fly the route four times a week with 2:30 p.m. arrivals Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and 5:37 a.m. departures Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Mondays.

Expanding international air service from McCarran has been a key growth strategy for the airport and the LVCVA.

With the addition of the Air Berlin flights, the number of weekly flights will climb to 180, 22 more than in May 2011. The number of international seats available to the Las Vegas market will rise by 4,051 seats since last year to 30,672, a 15.2 percent increase.

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