Passenger volume at Harry Reid International Airport smashed its three-year-old all-time record in 2022, with the airport welcoming more than 52.6 million passengers.

In a statement Monday afternoon, Clark County Director of Aviation Rosemary Vassiliadis said the facility and the airline industry were no longer talking about a post-pandemic air passenger recovery in Las Vegas.

“This is undeniably a period of growth that we expect will continue in 2023,” Vassiliadis said.

The 52.6 million passengers marked a 32.6 percent increase in volume compared with 2021 and easily snapped the airport’s 2019 then-record total of 51.5 million. The all-time mark seemed in reach after November when the 11-month passenger total would have been considered the fourth-highest one-year total for the airport.

Over the past year, Reid Airport saw its single-month passenger records broken three times, with October being the first month to surpass 5 million travelers.

Vassiliadis said business travel still was recovering during 2022, but leisure travel to Las Vegas exceeded expectations with visitors drawn to expanded sports offerings and other large-scale entertainment events.

In December, Reid Airport drew almost 4.4 million passengers. That was nearly a 13 percent increase over the previous year despite a nationwide disruption by Southwest Airlines, which suffered massive flight cancellations and lengthy delays due to technology issues and weather-related problems.

Southwest, which is the airport’s busiest air carrier, actually grew passenger volume in December by 3.2 percent, ending 2022 with more than 18 million passengers, a 29.4 percent increase over 2021.

International passenger volume reached more than 2.5 million, still below the single-year record of 3.8 million passengers set in 2019.

In a statement, Reid Airport officials said the recovery of international travel included direct service to and from 17 foreign destinations during 2022 with the resumption of flights from South Korea, Germany and Switzerland. International schedules are expected to increase in 2023 with global travel restrictions further easing.