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While the full picture of just how much travel into the United States has fallen under the Trump administration will become clearer when the numbers for all of 2025 are calculated, one city on the west side of the country has seen a particularly dramatic dropoff. The most recent numbers released by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority show that 220 million fewer visitors came to the city in August 2025 compared to the previous year, while hotel occupancy rates were down by nearly 15% last summer. Canadian airlines Air Canada and WestJet both recently recorded approximately 30% fewer arrivals into Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) relative to last year amid Trump’s repeated jabs at the country as a “51st state.” In response, Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley held an August press conference in which she asked “everybody in Canada [to] please come.” Spirit Airlines flew into Las Vegas a lot less last September “International travel is way down,” Berkley said in a separate press conference to local lawmakers and business leaders at around the same time. “People are not coming to the United States.” Berkley’s statements are now confirmed by additional flight data first reported by Newsweek; the 4 million flights that Spirit Airlines alone ran into the city in the first half of 2025 is a 34% decrease from 2024, while September flights are down by 46%. Overall traffic to Harry Reid across different airlines is also down by 6.4%. Even without the low flight numbers into Las Vegas, Spirit faces an uncertain future. It filed for bankruptcy a second time within nine months on Aug. 30, despite claiming just a few months earlier that it had fully emerged from Chapter 11 procedures initiated last November. With over $8 million in debts, the low-cost carrier recently received court approval for a $1.23 billion restructuring package that includes $475 million in new debtor-in-possession financing. A short summary of Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy problems While once able to win over passengers with competitive pricing, the airline’s ultra-low-cost model has in recent years faced increasing pressure over rising labor and fuel costs and competition from multiple carriers flying the same routes. Recent efforts to win over higher-income passengers with more premium products have so far also struggled to take off, as the core customer base still associates Spirit with cheaper airfare. More on travel: Major airline launches surprising flight between Las Vegas and Paris United Airlines CEO gives stark warning on Olympic Games The highest rooftop in Barcelona is in a surprising place US government issues sudden warning on Switzerland travel The airline has struggled on multiple fronts and has been hit harder when a specific market saw a dramatic dropoff in traveler numbers. According to the Newsweek numbers, United and Southwest flights into Las Vegas rose by a respective 5.4% and 5.5%. Before the end of 2025, Spirit also announced that it will cut its service into New Orleans from Las Vegas as well as other cities like Chicago, Houston, Raleigh/Durham, and Tegucigalpa in Honduras. In an internal memo sent to Spirit employees in mid-September, Spirit CEO Dave Davis said that cutting capacity by more than 25% will require more “tough calls” that “inevitably affect the size of our teams.”
