Shake-up expected with new terminal at McCarran
The opening of Terminal 3 one year from now will trigger a major reshuffling of the airlines at McCarran International Airport.
When the dust settles, one of the oldest parts of the airport could close permanently.
Airport management has informed seven domestic and 13 international carriers that they will move part or all of their Las Vegas operations to the $2.4 billion addition, which is expected to see its first flight on June 27, 2012. The shifts should leave enough surplus gates elsewhere allow the closure of Concourse A, which was built in the early 1970s.
“The A gates are our least productive and the oldest ones,” Clark County Aviation Director Randall Walker said. “It’s where the weakest concentration of concessions are.”
That matters to airport management because rent from food and retail shops helps pay the bills. Concourse D has many more retail outlets than A with consistently higher average transaction sales.
Also, the two arms of Concourse A have circular “banjos” with gates at the ends, a concept in vogue four decades ago but long since abandoned as less efficient than linear designs.
Airport management is in talks with US Airways to transfer all of its flights from Concourse A, where it is the only airline, to D. This would place US Airways closer to the merged United and Continental, all of which belong to the Star Alliance and sometimes sell tickets on one another’s planes.
Walker didn’t say when or if the US Airways talks would lead to the carrier’s moving. The other arm of Concourse A was closed in early 2009 as US Airways dismantled its Las Vegas hub.
The recently cemented plans for Terminal 3 include shifting Alaska, JetBlue, Virgin America, Sun Country and Frontier entirely, taking up the eight domestic gates on the west side of the half-mile-long building. United/Continental and Hawaiian will move their ticketing and baggage handling there, with United/Continental keeping its gates in Concourse D and Hawaiian moving to D gates from Terminal 2.
Concourse D and Terminal 3 will be connected by a short tram running in a tunnel between the two.
The 13 international airlines, ranging from daily flights by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic to warm-season service by France’s XL, will occupy the six gates on the eastern side, where customs and immigration functions have been clustered.
Airport management has budgeted
$5 million during the upcoming fiscal year to cover moving costs.
All airlines in Terminal 3 will share gates, said Deputy Aviation Director Rosemary Vassiliadis, though Canada’s WestJet — McCarran’s largest international carrier — would take the middle gates because it needs an international gate even though many of its passengers clear customs and immigration in Canada.
WestJet now splits its operation between Concourse B and Terminal 2.
To try to avoid passenger confusion, the conventional signs on the roads leading McCarran airport will be replaced with electronic ones listing the airlines for each terminal. Signs matching airlines and their terminals are standard equipment in cities with multiterminal operations, but are only now needed at McCarran.
Vassiliadis said airport management is looking at “several options” about what to do with the four-gate Terminal 2, which will be mothballed after next year.
Independently of all the other changes, Continental will shift its Concourse D gates to adjoin those of United later this year, in preparation for a unified United. Similarly, AirTran will eventually move from Concourse D to concourses B and C to join Southwest, which purchased AirTran in May.
Contact reporter Tim O’Reiley at
toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.
