Getting to Hawai'i's unofficial favorite vacation destination — Las Vegas — will get a little harder to schedule and probably more expensive following the abrupt shutdown of Aloha and ATA airlines last week, tourism officials said.

The two carriers accounted for 40 percent of the passenger traffic between the two cities, by some estimates. The Nevada gambling mecca is a local favorite for Mainland getaways, so much so that the Nevada city is often nicknamed the "ninth island" after the eight major Hawaiian islands.

State tourism liaison Marsha Wienert said she expects the double blow of two airlines closing the same week will disrupt some travel to Las Vegas.

"That doesn't surprise me in the least," Wienert said.

But Wienert said she doubts that the number of Hawai'i folks headed to Las Vegas will decline over time.

"They're going to find a way to get there," she said. "They may have to go through L.A. or San Francisco like they did before."

Kehau Amorin, special projects manager for Panda Travel, said more travelers will be scrambling for fewer seats. "Potentially, the airfares might get higher," she said. "ATA primarily was the inexpensive way to travel to Las Vegas."

She said seats to Las Vegas on holidays and special dates already are disappearing fast for the remaining airlines.

Amorin said Memorial Day weekend reservations already are being scooped up fast on Hawaiian Airlines and other carriers. "They're pretty tight," she said. "The seats are going to get limited the longer people wait."

Other popular dates are starting to go as well. She said travelers are aiming to be in Las Vegas on Aug. 8 because the number eight has lucky connotations and that is the eighth day of the eighth month in 2008.

People who plan to arrive a few days earlier can probably still book, she said. However, "if you're trying to get there on that day, good luck."

Vacations Hawaii, which is part of Nevada-based Boyd Gaming, takes a lot of Hawai'i residents to Las Vegas.

Spokesman Rob Stillwell said the company carries travelers six days a week on its Omni International charters. But other residents have been catching ATA and Aloha.

"There's no question that some of our customers are feeling the inconvenience," Stillwell said. "I think in the short term there's going to be an impact."

But he said it's too early to tell how big an impact there will be over the long haul since there's a strong demand for those routes.

He estimated that about 100,000 Hawai'i residents use Vacations Hawaii to get to their Vegas vacation.

Amorin praised Hawaiian Airlines, Panda's team of travel planners and others in the industry for working hard to ease the impact on travelers.

"The phone's still ringing," she said. But she said people are trying to do their best to help travelers. She said most people seem understanding about Aloha Airlines as having tried hard to survive, but people are upset that ATA worked one day and closed the next without warning.

"Those customers are more angry," she said.