Harry Reid International Airport

Origins

George Crockett, a flight instructor, built Alamo Field in 1942 on the site currently occupied by Harry Reid Airport.^[9][10] Crockett named it in honor of his forefather Davy Crockett, who had fought in the Battle of the Alamo. The airfield opened in January 1943. It catered to general aviation and included three gravel runways, a flight school, and a terminal building.^[9] Meanwhile, all commercial airlines flew into the Las Vegas Army Airfield. They shared the facility with the Army Air Forces, which had been operating an air base there since the attack on Pearl Harbor.^[10][11] The base closed in 1946.^[9]

With the onset of the Cold War, the military said it was amenable to reopening the base, but it wanted the airlines to move elsewhere.^[12] Crockett was willing to let them use his airfield, so the Clark County Commission entered into negotiations with him.^[10] In the meantime, the county held a bond election to fund construction work that would enable Alamo Field to handle commercial operations. Proponents of the bond issue, who included the chamber of commerce and casino executives, sought the economic benefits of both an air base and a modern airport capable of serving the increasing numbers of tourists that they expected to arrive. Voters approved the bond in 1947.^[9][12] With the help of U.S. senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, the county finalized a deal with Crockett to purchase his airfield the following year.^[9][13] On December 19, 1948, the airport was renamed McCarran Field and began receiving passenger flights.^[14]

Expansion

The growth of the Las Vegas casino industry during the 1950s fueled a rise in air traffic; the city went from receiving 36,000 passengers in 1948 to nearly one million in 1959. In September 1960, United Airlines became the first carrier to offer jet flights to Las Vegas.^[15] The airport was ill-equipped to handle the increasing passenger counts and the advent of commercial jetliners. Consequently, the county built a new terminal, which opened in March 1963.^[15][16] Another expansion project, which included adding Concourses A and B and lengthening the runways, ended in 1974.^[17][18] However, traffic levels had already rendered the project insufficient by the time it was completed. Airport officials therefore prepared for further expansion.^[17]

The deregulation of the airline industry in 1978 led to an increase in the number of carriers at McCarran and prompted officials to accelerate their expansion plans.^[19] In October 1985, a central terminal, Concourse C, and a people mover between the two buildings opened.^[13][20]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, America West Airlines was the busiest airline at McCarran.^[21] The carrier began offering cheap night flights to Las Vegas in 1986.^[22] It ultimately developed a hub at the airport that functioned between 10 pm and 2 am every night. The strategy capitalized on the fact that Las Vegas was open 24 hours a day and enabled the airline to decrease costs.^[23][24] America West charged low fares because it was the only carrier operating such a large number of flights at that time of night.^[25] Most of its customers were tourists, while the remainder were changing planes.^[23] By the late 1990s, Southwest Airlines had overtaken America West as McCarran's largest carrier and occupied all the gates in Concourse C. According to contemporary reports, Southwest emphasized high-frequency service, low fares, and cooperative marketing with local resorts in the Las Vegas market.^[26][27][28]

Multiple projects were finished during the 1990s. The Charter/International Terminal, later renamed Terminal 2, opened in December 1991.^[13][29] A cargo center was dedicated two years later.^[13] In 1994, a tunnel beneath the east–west runways that linked the airport to the Las Vegas Beltway opened.^[30][31] A nine-level parking facility was completed in 1996, and in June 1998, the first two wings of Concourse D were inaugurated.^[32][33] McCarran also gained its first scheduled flights to Europe and Asia. In November 1996, Condor launched a route to Cologne, and Northwest Airlines commenced service to its hub at Tokyo's Narita Airport in June 1998.^[34][35][36] With the backing of two casinos, National Airlines set up a hub in Las Vegas the following year. The company specialized in low-fare flights to cities on the East Coast. Other casinos responded by arranging package deals with larger airlines. This and other factors led to National's demise in 2002.^[37][38]

Innovation and new terminal

Officials started to introduce new technologies. In the late 1990s, they began following a common-use strategy, where airlines share airport facilities.^[39][40] The airport first deployed computer systems known as common-use terminal equipment (CUTE) at gates and check-in counters. McCarran pioneered the use of CUTE in the domestic terminals of American airports.^[40] In 2003, it became the first airport in the country to install common-use self-service kiosks, which customers use to check in and obtain their boarding passes.^[41][42] With nearly 30 carriers serving McCarran, officials did not want to have separate sets of kiosks for each one. The airport's use of common-use facilities has been cited in industry publications as an early example of the common-use approach in the United States.^[39] It began implementing a baggage-tracking system based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) in 2005. The technology was intended to facilitate luggage screening and decrease the chances of losing bags.^[42][43] McCarran and the Hong Kong airport were the first to use RFID on a large scale.^[43][44]

In the 2000s, Allegiant Air moved its headquarters from Fresno to Las Vegas. The company also changed its focus to providing nonstop flights between small towns and vacation destinations and expanded the number of cities it served from McCarran to 35.^[45][46] In 2004, Philippine Airlines extended its flight between Manila and Vancouver to Las Vegas. The service was primarily targeted at tourists from western Canada, though the carrier also hoped to attract members of the large Filipino community in Las Vegas.^[47][48] The third wing of Concourse D, along with a ramp control tower, opened in April 2005.^[49] Two years later, a consolidated rental car facility began operations.^[50] The fourth and final wing of Concourse D was added in September 2008.^[51] In the same month, US Airways closed the night hub due to the 2000s energy crisis. The airline had merged with America West in 2005.^[52][53] US Airways shut its crew base at McCarran in 2010.^[54] By 2012, the company had eliminated all routes except for those to its hubs in Charlotte, Philadelphia, and Phoenix and its focus city at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.^[55][56]

Fearing McCarran would soon exceed its capacity, the Clark County Commission began work on Terminal 3 in 2005. The economy was doing well, and Terminal 2 had become congested. Although the economy later entered a recession, the county chose to proceed with the project.^[57][58] The airport's cargo facility was located within the Terminal 3 site, so it was replaced by the Marnell Air Cargo Center, which opened in 2010.^[59][60] The new terminal was inaugurated in June 2012, replacing Terminal 2.^[57][61] It cost $2.4 billion and was the largest public works project in Nevada.^[62] In 2013, Philippine Airlines discontinued its route to Las Vegas.^[63] In 2016, Terminal 2 was demolished,^[57] and a new control tower and Terminal Radar Approach Control facility were completed.^[64] At 352 feet (107 m) tall, it was the second tallest in the country when completed.^[65][66] In 2017, the airport equipped seven gates in Concourse D to receive international flights and built a tunnel to connect them to the customs facility in Terminal 3.^[67][68] LATAM Airlines Brasil added a seasonal route to São Paulo, McCarran's first direct link to South America, in June 2018.^[69][70]

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the control tower was closed for several days after a controller tested positive for the virus, leading to many delays and cancellations.^[71] The following month, the decrease in traffic caused by the pandemic prompted the closure of all the gates in Concourse B and Terminal 3.^[72] Concourse B reopened in the summer, and the E gates in Terminal 3 subsequently reopened in July 2021.^[73]

In February 2021, the Clark County Commission voted unanimously to rename the airport after U.S. senator Harry Reid of Nevada. The commissioners believed that Pat McCarran had left a legacy of anti-Semitism and racism.^[74][75] The airport was officially renamed in December 2021.^[76][77]

Passenger

Cargo

Top destinations

Airline market share

Annual traffic

‡ = Revised data

• From 1970 to the end of 2025, 1,593,383,560 passengers (enplaned+deplaned) have passed through Harry Reid Int'l Airport, an annual average of 28,453,278 passengers per year.