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72-511: Harry Reid International Airport ( IATA : LAS , ICAO : KLAS , FAA LID : LAS ), formerly known as McCarran International Airport , is an international airport serving the Las Vegas Valley , a metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Nevada . It is located five miles (8 km; 4 nmi) south of downtown Las Vegas in the unincorporated area of Paradise and covers 2,800 acres (4.4 sq mi; 11.3 km) of land. Reid

144-717: A consolidated rental car facility began operations. The fourth and final wing of Concourse D was added in September 2008. 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. US Airways shut its crew base at McCarran in 2010. 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. Fearing McCarran would soon exceed its capacity,

216-558: A flight instructor, built Alamo Field in 1942 on the site currently occupied by Harry Reid Airport. 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. Meanwhile, all commercial airlines flew into

288-567: A large number of flights at that time of night. Most of its customers were tourists, while the remainder were changing planes. By the late 1990s, Southwest Airlines had overtaken America West as McCarran's largest carrier and occupied all the gates in Concourse C. The company's high frequency of flights, cheap tickets, and collaboration with local resorts contributed to its success in the Las Vegas market. Multiple projects were finished during

360-439: A legacy of anti-Semitism and racism. The airport was officially renamed ten months later. Harry Reid International Airport has four runways: The runways are made of concrete. 1L, 26R, and 26L have a category I instrument landing system with distance measuring equipment . 8L/26R is the third-longest civil runway in the country. The airport has a total of 110 gates across two passenger terminals, which are numbered 1 and 3, and

432-567: A new airport is built, replacing the old one, leaving the city's new "major" airport (or the only remaining airport) code to no longer correspond with the city's name. The original airport in Nashville, Tennessee, was built in 1936 as part of the Works Progress Administration and called Berry Field with the designation, BNA. A new facility known as Nashville International Airport was built in 1987 but still uses BNA. This

504-472: A number of carriers. Between 1978 and mid-2001, eight major carriers (including Eastern , Midway , Braniff , Pan Am , Continental , Northwest Airlines , and TWA ) and more than 100 smaller airlines went bankrupt or were liquidated, including most of the dozens of new airlines founded in deregulation's aftermath. For the most part, smaller markets did not suffer the erosion of service that had been predicted by some opponents of deregulation. However, until

576-687: A reputation in the United States as the model for the common-use approach. 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. McCarran and the Hong Kong airport were the first to use RFID on a large scale. 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

648-579: A route to Cologne, and Northwest Airlines commenced service to its hub at Tokyo's Narita Airport in June 1998. 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. Officials started to introduce new technologies. In

720-405: A satellite concourse called Concourse D. Terminal 1 contains three concourses labeled A, B, and C. Terminal 3 houses the E gates and handles international arrivals. Terminal 3 and Concourse D are able to receive international flights, and a tunnel links the international gates in Concourse D to the customs checkpoint. There is an airside tram system with three lines. The green and blue lines connect

792-564: A tunnel to connect them to the customs facility in Terminal 3. LATAM Airlines Brasil added a seasonal route to São Paulo, McCarran's first direct link to South America, in June 2018. 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. The following month,

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864-509: Is GSN and its IATA code is SPN, and some coincide with IATA codes of non-U.S. airports. Canada's unusual codes—which bear little to no similarity with any conventional abbreviation to the city's name—such as YUL in Montréal , and YYZ in Toronto , originated from the two-letter codes used to identify weather reporting stations in the 1930s. The letters preceding the two-letter code follow

936-582: Is a 1978 United States federal law that deregulated the airline industry in the United States, removing federal control over such areas as fares, routes, and market entry of new airlines. The act gradually phased out and disbanded the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), but the regulatory powers of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over all aspects of aviation safety were not diminished. Since 1938,

1008-627: Is administered by the IATA's headquarters in Montreal , Canada. The codes are published semi-annually in the IATA Airline Coding Directory. IATA provides codes for airport handling entities, and for certain railway stations. Alphabetical lists of airports sorted by IATA code are available. A list of railway station codes , shared in agreements between airlines and rail lines such as Amtrak , SNCF , and Deutsche Bahn ,

1080-554: Is available. However, many railway administrations have their own list of codes for their stations, such as the list of Amtrak station codes . Airport codes arose out of the convenience that the practice brought pilots for location identification in the 1930s. Initially, pilots in the United States used the two-letter code from the National Weather Service (NWS) for identifying cities. This system became unmanageable for cities and towns without an NWS identifier, and

1152-523: Is different from the name in English, yet the airport code represents only the English name. Examples include: Due to scarcity of codes, some airports are given codes with letters not found in their names: The use of 'X' as a filler letter is a practice to create three-letter identifiers when more straightforward options were unavailable: Some airports in the United States retained their NWS ( National Weather Service ) codes and simply appended an X at

1224-513: Is in conjunction to rules aimed to avoid confusion that seem to apply in the United States, which state that "the first and second letters or second and third letters of an identifier may not be duplicated with less than 200 nautical miles separation." Thus, Washington, D.C. area's three airports all have radically different codes: IAD for Washington–Dulles , DCA for Washington–Reagan (District of Columbia Airport), and BWI for Baltimore (Baltimore–Washington International, formerly BAL). Since HOU

1296-543: Is not followed outside the United States: In addition, since three letter codes starting with Q are widely used in radio communication, cities whose name begins with "Q" also had to find alternate codes, as in the case of: IATA codes should not be confused with the FAA identifiers of U.S. airports. Most FAA identifiers agree with the corresponding IATA codes, but some do not, such as Saipan , whose FAA identifier

1368-500: Is owned by Clark County and operated by the county's Department of Aviation . The airport is named after the late U.S. congressman and senator from Nevada, Harry Reid . It has four runways and two terminals with five gate areas (concourses) all connected with a people mover system. Reid is one of two airports in the United States with slot machines inside the terminals. The airport opened in January 1943 as Alamo Field and initially catered to general aviation . In December 1948, it

1440-416: Is used for William P. Hobby Airport , the new Houston–Intercontinental became IAH. The code BKK was originally assigned to Bangkok–Don Mueang and was later transferred to Suvarnabhumi Airport , while the former adopted DMK. The code ISK was originally assigned to Gandhinagar Airport (Nashik's old airport) and later on transferred to Ozar Airport (Nashik's current airport). Shanghai–Hongqiao retained

1512-571: The Canadian transcontinental railroads were built, each station was assigned its own two-letter Morse code : When the Canadian government established airports, it used the existing railway codes for them as well. If the airport had a weather station, authorities added a "Y" to the front of the code, meaning "Yes" to indicate it had a weather station or some other letter to indicate it did not. When international codes were created in cooperation with

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1584-884: The Council of Economic Advisers in the Nixon administration , along with the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice and other agencies, proposed legislation to diminish price collusion and entry barriers in rail and trucking transportation. While the initiative was in process in the Ford administration , the Senate Judiciary Committee , which had jurisdiction over antitrust law , began hearings on airline deregulation in 1975. Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy took

1656-718: 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 . The base closed in 1946. 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. Crockett was willing to let them use his airfield, so the Clark County Commission entered into negotiations with him. In

1728-498: The Montreal Convention with regard to international flights) also has the effect of preempting state law with regard to claims against airlines for delays, discrimination, consumer protection violations and other allegations of passenger mistreatment. A 1996 Government Accountability Office report found that the average fare per passenger mile was about nine percent lower in 1994 than in 1979. Between 1976 and 1990

1800-448: The jumbo jet . Most major airlines, whose profits were virtually guaranteed, favored the rigid system, but passengers who were forced to pay escalating fares were against it and were joined by communities that subsidized air service at ever-higher rates. The United States Congress became concerned that air transport, in the long run, might follow the nation's railroads into trouble. The Penn Central Railroad had collapsed in 1970, which

1872-604: The 1990s. The Charter/International Terminal, later renamed Terminal 2, opened in December 1991. A cargo center was dedicated two years later. In 1994, a tunnel beneath the east–west runways that linked the airport to the Las Vegas Beltway opened. A nine-level parking facility was completed in 1996, and in June 1998, the first two wings of Concourse D were inaugurated. McCarran also gained its first scheduled flights to Europe and Asia. In November 1996, Condor launched

1944-612: 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. 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. The new terminal was inaugurated in June 2012, replacing Terminal 2. It cost $ 2.4 billion and

2016-483: The Marnell Air Cargo Center, which can handle 100,000 short tons (91,000 t) of cargo. Janet Air flights to secret military installations operate from a dedicated terminal building. The airport also has a parking lot where the public can watch aircraft take off and land. Maverick Helicopters and Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters each operate their own terminal at Harry Reid Airport for sightseeing flights. The Maverick terminal covers 6,000 square feet (560 m), and

2088-458: The Sundance terminal occupies 13,000 square feet (1,200 m). The Papillon terminal was established in 1997. In 2023, a record 57.6 million travelers passed through Reid Airport. The airport also had 612,000 aircraft movements and handled 263 million pounds (119 million kg) of cargo. ‡Final adjusted passenger data for 2023. Vehicles reach the airport via Paradise Road and Russell Road from

2160-467: The U.S. For example, several airports in Alaska have scheduled commercial service, such as Stebbins and Nanwalek , which use FAA codes instead of ICAO codes. Thus, neither system completely includes all airports with scheduled service. Some airports are identified in colloquial speech by their IATA code. Examples include LAX and JFK . Airline Deregulation Act The Airline Deregulation Act

2232-601: The United States air transport system, and contributed to the development of a wider range of aircraft types that are better adaptable to markets of varying sizes. In 2011, Supreme Court Justice member Stephen Breyer , who was a special counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in the 1970s and worked with Senator Kennedy on the bill, wrote: What does the industry's history tell us? Was this effort worthwhile? Certainly it shows that every major reform brings about new, sometimes unforeseen, problems. No one foresaw

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2304-481: The United States, because "Y" was seldom used in the United States, Canada simply used the weather station codes for its airports, changing the "Y" to a "Z" if it conflicted with an airport code already in use. The result is that most major Canadian airport codes start with "Y" followed by two letters in the city's name (for example, YOW for O tta w a , YWG for W innipe g , YYC for C algar y , or YVR for V ancouve r ), whereas other Canadian airports append

2376-542: The advent of low-cost carriers , point-to-point air transport declined in favor of a more pronounced hub-and-spoke system . A traveler starting from a non-hub airport (a spoke) would fly into the hub, then reach the final destination by flying from the hub to another airport, the spoke. While more efficient for serving smaller markets, this system has enabled some airlines to drive out competition from their "fortress hubs." The growth of low-cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines has brought more point-to-point service back into

2448-440: The airport itself instead of the city it serves, while another code is reserved which refers to the city itself which can be used to search for flights to any of its airports. For instance: Or using a code for the city in one of the major airports and then assigning another code to another airport: When different cities with the same name each have an airport, they need to be assigned different codes. Examples include: Sometimes,

2520-418: The airport's former name, such as Orlando International Airport 's MCO (for Mc C o y Air Force Base), or Chicago's O'Hare International Airport , which is coded ORD for its original name: Or char d Field. In rare cases, the code comes from the airport's unofficial name, such as Kahului Airport 's OGG (for local aviation pioneer Jimmy H ogg ). In large metropolitan areas, airport codes are often named after

2592-399: The airport. Harry Reid International Airport - under its former name, McCarran International Airport - appears in the 2010 videogame Fallout: New Vegas . In game, it is often referred to as Camp McCarran, due to the presence of New California Republic troops using it as a military base. IATA airport code The assignment of these codes is governed by IATA Resolution 763, and it

2664-522: The central part of Terminal 1 with Concourses C and D, respectively. The red line runs between Terminal 3 and Concourse D. In 1968, slot machines were first installed at the airport. The Las Vegas and Reno airports are the only two airports in the United States with slot machines. Terminal 1 and Concourse D also house exhibits of the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum, which covers the history of aviation in southern Nevada. Airlines unload their freight at

2736-502: The code SHA, while the newer Shanghai–Pudong adopted PVG. The opposite was true for Berlin : the airport Berlin–Tegel used the code TXL, while its smaller counterpart Berlin–Schönefeld used SXF; the Berlin Brandenburg Airport has the airport code BER, which is also part of its branding. The airports of Hamburg (HAM) and Hannover (HAJ) are less than 100 nautical miles (190 km) apart and therefore share

2808-454: The decrease in traffic caused by the pandemic prompted the closure of all the gates in Concourse B and Terminal 3. Concourse B reopened in the summer, and the E gates in Terminal 3 subsequently reopened in July 2021. 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

2880-538: The end of all domestic fare regulation by January 1, 1983. In practice, changes came rather more rapidly than that. Among its many terms, the act did the following: Safety inspections and air traffic control remained in the hands of the FAA, and the act also required the Secretary of Transportation to report to Congress about air safety and any implications that deregulation would have in that matter. The ADA (along with

2952-934: The end. Examples include: A lot of minor airfields without scheduled passenger traffic have ICAO codes but not IATA codes, since the four letter codes allow more number of codes, and IATA codes are mainly used for passenger services such as tickets, and ICAO codes by pilots. In the US, such airfields use FAA codes instead of ICAO. There are airports with scheduled service for which there are ICAO codes but not IATA codes, such as Nkhotakota Airport/Tangole Airport in Malawi or Chōfu Airport in Tokyo, Japan. There are also several minor airports in Russia (e.g., Omsukchan Airport ) which lack IATA codes and instead use internal Russian codes for booking. Flights to these airports cannot be booked through

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3024-504: The federal CAB had regulated all domestic interstate air transport routes as a public utility , setting fares, routes, and schedules. Airlines that flew only intrastate routes, however, were not regulated by the CAB but were regulated by the governments of the states in which they operated. One way that the CAB promoted air travel was generally attempting to hold fares down in the short-haul market, which would be subsidized by higher fares in

3096-423: The first carrier to offer jet flights to Las Vegas. 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. Another expansion project, which included adding Concourses A and B and lengthening the runways, ended in 1974. However, traffic levels had already rendered the project insufficient by

3168-557: The first three letters of the city in which it is located, for instance: The code may also be a combination of the letters in its name, such as: Sometimes the airport code reflects pronunciation, rather than spelling, namely: For many reasons, some airport codes do not fit the normal scheme described above. Some airports, for example, cross several municipalities or regions, and therefore, use codes derived from some of their letters, resulting in: Other airports—particularly those serving cities with multiple airports—have codes derived from

3240-478: The following format: Most large airports in Canada have codes that begin with the letter "Y", although not all "Y" codes are Canadian (for example, YUM for Yuma, Arizona , and YNT for Yantai , China), and not all Canadian airports start with the letter "Y" (for example, ZBF for Bathurst, New Brunswick ). Many Canadian airports have a code that starts with W, X or Z, but none of these are major airports. When

3312-597: The form of " YYZ ", a song by the rock band Rush , which utilizes the Morse code signal as a musical motif. Some airports have started using their IATA codes as brand names , such as Calgary International Airport (YYC) and Vancouver International Airport (YVR). Numerous New Zealand airports use codes that contain the letter Z, to distinguish them from similar airport names in other countries. Examples include HLZ for Hamilton , ZQN for Queenstown , and WSZ for Westport . Predominantly, airport codes are named after

3384-460: The help of U.S. senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, the county finalized a deal with Crockett to purchase his airfield the following year. On December 19, 1948, the airport was renamed McCarran Field and began receiving passenger flights. 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

3456-435: The industry's spectacular growth, with the number of air passengers increasing from 207.5 million in 1974 to 721.1 million last year. As a result, no one foresaw the extent to which new bottlenecks would develop: a flight-choked Northeast corridor, overcrowded airports, delays, and terrorist risks consequently making air travel increasingly difficult. Nor did anyone foresee the extent to which change might unfairly harm workers in

3528-465: The industry. Still, fares have come down. Airline revenue per passenger mile has declined from an inflation-adjusted 33.3 cents in 1974, to 13 cents in the first half of 2010. In 1974 the cheapest round-trip New York-Los Angeles flight (in inflation-adjusted dollars) that regulators would allow: $ 1,442. Today one can fly that same route for $ 268. That is why the number of travelers has gone way up. So we sit in crowded planes, munch potato chips, flare up when

3600-487: The international air booking systems or have international luggage transferred there, and thus, they are booked instead through the airline or a domestic booking system. Several heliports in Greenland have 3-letter codes used internally which might be IATA codes for airports in faraway countries. There are several airports with scheduled service that have not been assigned ICAO codes that do have IATA codes, especially in

3672-533: The last chairman of the CAB and would oversee its final closure on January 1, 1985. Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada introduced S. 2493 on February 6, 1978. The bill was passed and was signed by Carter on October 24, 1978. The stated goals of the Act included the following: The Act intended for various restrictions on airline operations to be removed over four years, with complete elimination of restrictions on domestic routes and new services by December 31, 1981, and

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3744-611: The late 1990s, they began following a common-use strategy, where airlines share airport facilities. 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. 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. With nearly 30 carriers serving McCarran, officials did not want to have separate sets of kiosks for each one. The airport ultimately acquired

3816-631: The lead in the hearings. The committee was deemed a friendlier forum than what likely would have been the more appropriate venue, the Aviation Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee . The Ford administration supported the Judiciary Committee initiative. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Alfred E. Kahn , a professor of economics at Cornell University , to be chair of the CAB. A concerted push for

3888-479: The legislation had developed from leading economists, leading think-tanks in Washington, a civil society coalition advocating the reform (patterned on a coalition earlier developed for the truck-and-rail-reform efforts), the head of the regulatory agency, Senate leadership, the Carter administration, and even some in the airline industry. The coalition swiftly gained legislative results in 1978. Dan McKinnon would be

3960-401: The long-haul market. The CAB also had to ensure that the airlines had a reasonable rate of return . The CAB had earned a reputation for bureaucratic complacency; airlines were subject to lengthy delays when they applied for new routes or fare changes, and were often not approved. For example, World Airways applied to begin a low-fare New York City–to–Los Angeles route in 1967; the CAB studied

4032-417: 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. With

4104-612: The name of the airport itself, for instance: This is also true with some cities with a single airport (even if there is more than one airport in the metropolitan area of said city), such as BDL for Hartford, Connecticut 's B ra dl ey International Airport or Baltimore's BWI, for B altimore/ W ashington I nternational Airport ; however, the latter also serves Washington, D.C. , alongside Dulles International Airport (IAD, for I nternational A irport D ulles) and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA, for D istrict of C olumbia A irport). The code also sometimes comes from

4176-602: The north and via the Harry Reid Airport Connector , which branches off from the Las Vegas Beltway , from the south. A 5,000-space consolidated rental car facility is located three miles (5 km) away and is linked to the terminals by shuttle buses. Buses also shuttle passengers between Terminals 1 and 3. The airport has scarce public transport connections due to being the busiest in the world without an airport rail link. The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada's public bus system serves

4248-465: The number of cities it served from McCarran to 35. 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. The third wing of Concourse D, along with a ramp control tower , opened in April 2005. Two years later,

4320-416: The one they are located in: Other airport codes are of obscure origin, and each has its own peculiarities: In Asia, codes that do not correspond with their city's names include Niigata 's KIJ , Nanchang 's KHN and Pyongyang 's FNJ . EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg , which serves three countries, has three airport codes: BSL, MLH, EAP. Some cities have a name in their respective language which

4392-559: The paid fare had declined approximately thirty percent in inflation -adjusted terms. Passenger loads have risen, partly because airlines can now transfer larger aircraft to longer, busier routes and replace them with smaller ones on shorter, lower-traffic routes. However, these trends have not been distributed evenly throughout the national air transportation network. Costs have fallen more dramatically on higher-traffic, longer-distance routes than on shorter ones. Exposure to competition led to heavy losses and conflicts with labor unions for

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4464-453: The request for over six years, only to dismiss it because the record was "stale". Continental Airlines began service between Denver and San Diego after eight years only because a United States Court of Appeals ordered the CAB to approve the application. This rigid system encountered tremendous pressure in the 1970s. The 1973 oil crisis and stagflation radically changed the economic environment, as did technological advances such as

4536-506: The same first and middle letters, indicating that this rule might be followed only in Germany. Many cities retain historical names in their airport codes, even after having undergone an official name/spelling/transliteration change: Some airport codes are based on previous names associated with a present airport, often with a military heritage. These include: Some airports are named for an administrative division or nearby city, rather than

4608-500: The station code of Malton, Mississauga , where it is located). YUL is used for Montréal–Trudeau (UL was the ID code for the beacon in the city of Kirkland , now the location of Montréal–Trudeau). While these codes make it difficult for the public to associate them with a particular Canadian city, some codes have become popular in usage despite their cryptic nature, particularly at the largest airports. Toronto's code has entered pop culture in

4680-422: The time it was completed. Airport officials therefore prepared for further expansion. 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. In October 1985, a central terminal, Concourse C, and a people mover between the two buildings opened. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, America West Airlines

4752-515: The two-letter code of the radio beacons that were the closest to the actual airport, such as YQX in Gander or YXS in Prince George . Four of the ten provincial capital airports in Canada have ended up with codes beginning with YY, including: Canada's largest airport is YYZ for Toronto Pearson (as YTZ was already allocated to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport , the airport was given

4824-529: The use of two letters allowed only a few hundred combinations; a three-letter system of airport codes was implemented. This system allowed for 17,576 permutations, assuming all letters can be used in conjunction with each other. Since the U.S. Navy reserved "N" codes, and to prevent confusion with Federal Communications Commission broadcast call signs , which begin with "W" or "K", the airports of certain U.S. cities whose name begins with one of these letters had to adopt "irregular" airport codes: This practice

4896-521: Was added in 2012, and the airport was renamed in honor of Senator Reid in 2021. Reid is served by over 30 airlines and is an operating base for Allegiant Air , Frontier Airlines , JSX , Southwest Airlines , and Spirit Airlines . Southwest became its dominant carrier in the 1990s. In 2023, 57.6 million passengers passed through the airport, the most in its history. Reid has international flights to cities in Asia, Europe, and North America. George Crockett,

4968-499: Was at that time the largest bankruptcy in history; this resulted in a huge taxpayer-funded bailout and the creation of the government-owned corporations Conrail and Amtrak . Leading economists had argued for several decades that the regulation led to inefficiency and higher costs. The Carter administration argued that the industry and its customers would benefit from new entrants, the abolishing of price regulation, and reduced control over routes and hub cities. In 1970 and 1971,

5040-470: Was rechristened for U.S. Senator Pat McCarran , and commercial airlines shifted to it from the Las Vegas Army Airfield . Passenger counts increased in the 1950s as the Strip expanded, leading to the construction of a new terminal. McCarran later came to be seen as the model for the common-use approach to airport resources in the United States and pioneered radio-frequency identification of baggage. Terminal 3

5112-413: Was the busiest airline at McCarran. The carrier began offering cheap night flights to Las Vegas in 1986. 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. America West charged low fares because it was the only carrier operating such

5184-481: Was the largest public works project in Nevada. In 2013, Philippine Airlines discontinued its route to Las Vegas. In 2016, Terminal 2 was demolished, and a new control tower and Terminal Radar Approach Control facility were completed. At 352 feet (107 m) tall, it was the second tallest in the country when completed. In 2017, the airport equipped seven gates in Concourse D to receive international flights and built

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