The Clark County Department of Aviation (CCDOA) will unveil Modernization Plans for the Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) on October 1, 2024.
The presentation, linked above, covers two main topics – improving the Harry Reid Airport and the Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport (SNSA) plan, which isn’t expected to come online until 2039.
Improvements to Harry Reid International
This portion covered several parts, most notably the first publicly announced plan for the demolition and reconstruction of the A&B Gates, originally built in the early 1970s.
The presentation was light on details for the demolition and replacement of the A&B Gates, suggesting that it is probably more of a plan at this point rather than something closer to being shovel-ready.
The current layout of the A, B, and C Gates at the airport in Terminal 1 (T1) is somewhat disconnected. The A and B Gates are connected post-security, and a hallway was built to accommodate Southwest’s continued expansion in Las Vegas, where they outgrew the C Gates and needed to start using the B Gates as well.
Side Note: Before the hallway was completed, there was a tarmac-level shuttle that would take you from the B Gates to the C Gates if you had to connect between the two sets of gates. I would always use it because the TSAs were always shorter at the A&B Checkpoint compared to the C Checkpoint (before the large new C Checkpoint was built near ticketing).
The current layout of the A, B, and C Gates is shown above, comprising 39 aircraft gates. The A & B Gates used to have more gates. However, those were lost after 9/11 when supplemental baggage screening buildings were built to accommodate the new security precautions implemented.
The proposed layout is below, and most importantly, it utilizes the vacant space occupied by the old Terminal 2 (international and charter flights, opened in 1991, closed in 2012 when Terminal 3 opened, demolished in 2016), noted on the images as gates 55 through 65.
This project would add 26 gates to the Terminal 1 building and dramatically increase the number of aircraft and passengers using the facilities. There was no discussion of changes to the ground-side services (ticketing, baggage claim, TSA Checkpoints, terminal parking, etc.). Hopefully, this information will come in future updates to the plan since increasing the number of aircraft and passengers using the A, B, and C Gates by 67% is likely to cause a lot of strain on any part of Terminal 1 that doesn’t get an upgrade.
No information was provided on the timeline, cost, construction phasing, and other disruptions due to this complete replacement of the A&B Gates. Presumably, they would start with the northern pier (the right side of the image) and work southward since they could construct about 10-12 new gates without too much of an impact on the existing facilities. This would provide room to tear down the A Gates, build the next pier, and so on without negatively impacting the total number of gates available.
No information was provided on how the extra gates would impact taxiways or runway operations, which are considered the limiting factors in the airport’s growth. There is no room to construct additional runways—the airport is landlocked.
To help ease the strain on Terminal 1, Terminal 3 is getting a few minor changes that appear to be designed to take some of the burden away from the Terminal 1 ground-side facilities. These changes include a small expansion of the ticketing area and a set of two-story escalators that will take travelers from the new ticketing area down to the level 0 TSA Checkpoint, which is a short walk away from the automated people mover system to take travelers to the D Gates. This infrastructure, combined with operational changes to shift more of the airlines that use the D Gates over to Terminal 3, could ease the burden of the ground-side facilities in T1 as the number of aircraft gates grows.
Finally, Terminal 3 is going to be renamed to… Terminal 2. Which will likely confuse passengers and locals for many years to come.
In the meantime, improvements are planned for A Gates to provide more concession areas and retail space. The planned concessions are a sit-down Food & Beverage location, Starbucks, and retail space. Today, the A&B Gates do not have a lot of concession space, as the gate hold areas are already tight on seating, and there are few areas to expand. Whenever I end up in the B Gates for a Southwest flight, I usually make a pit stop at a concession in the C Gates to pick up some food before heading to the B Gates.
Given that they have plans (and based on the presentation, at least some CAD drawings) of the expansion, they are probably far enough along that it shouldn’t take too long to get this going. It also means that it isn’t terribly likely that the A&B Gates demolition and rebuild is coming soon.
The next is a minor but very well-received expansion to the C Gates. First, another set of bathrooms will be added to the concourse. The concourse is undersized for the number of passengers traversing the area daily. In the ’80s and early ’90s, I can remember flying American and Southwest out of these gates, and the volume of people was nowhere near where it is today—shoulder to shoulder everywhere you look. This expansion will also include the expansion of Pei Wei, plus three new Food & Beverage establishments and retail space. Plus, a new seating area.
Again, since the presentation has CAD drawings, I’m inclined to think that the plans are far enough along that this will happen in the near-term (near being a relative term).
The last improvements include additional roadways and two new transportation centers to accommodate travelers who use the public bus system or ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft. While taking the ride-hailing services away from the airport parking areas is detrimental to passengers who want to get somewhere in a hurry, it is understandable from a roadway congestion standpoint. While airports like Las Vegas have long built taxi staging areas as part of their facilities, no such areas exist for ride-hailing services on airport grounds. LAX is building something similar but plans to connect its multi-modal transit centers with an automated people mover. It didn’t appear from the information in the presentation that any people mover system was being considered; instead, a system of shuttles or busses would be used to move people between locations, and the roadways being built would support a faster non-stop connection between the terminals and your Uber.
Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport
Comparatively speaking, the presentation did not provideation. It provided an overview of the new airport and an EIS update. The airport does appear to have both passenger and cargo areas. Notably absent from the diagram was any conspicuous connection to the Brightline West high-speed rail that will one day connect the Las Vegas metro area with the LA metro area (specifically, Rancho Cucamonga). Without a connection to Brightline, passengers may find out they’re out an expensive taxi or Lyft to get into town.
