The story
Hoping to attract more visitors from the East Coast, Harrah's Entertainment and the former Rio Hotel & Casino, Inc. each contributed $15 million toward the start-up costs of National Airlines in July 1998. Wexford Capital, owners of Republic Airways Holdings, also contributed several million dollars to create the airline.
Taking a page from Southwest Airlines' book, National kept operations simple by operating a single aircraft type—in National's case, the Boeing 757.
Service began on May 27, 1999. This was the third airline in the United States to use the "National Airlines" name. Michael Conway became president and CEO of the company. From its inception, the company fought an uphill battle against rising fuel costs and an economic recession. National Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on December 6, 2000.
Like many other airlines, National had serious financial problems after the September 11 attacks in 2001, and only 41 months after their inaugural flight left Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, the airline ceased all operations on November 6, 2002, after being in Chapter 11 bankruptcy for 23 months.
As of the day of National's grounding, the airline had carried 1.85 million passengers through McCarran (January–November 2002), and National was the airport's fourth-largest carrier based upon passenger volume. Departing McCarran International Airport at 4:20 p.m., National Airlines Flight 354 to Dallas/Fort Worth was the carrier's last to leave the Las Vegas hub.
From Wikipedia’s article on National Airlines (1999–2002), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3