McCarran International Airport - History

History

American aviator George Crockett, a descendant of frontiersman Davy Crockett, established Alamo Airport in 1942 on the site currently occupied by McCarran International.

In 1929, the old Las Vegas Airport, which would become Nellis AFB, was nothing more than a dirt runway, a water well and a small operations shack for Western Air Express Airlines. The United States Army Air Corps had been looking at the Las Vegas area since the 1930s, when it had used the Western Air Express Field—later renamed McCarran Field, northeast of Las Vegas for its training flights. In 1941, the Army concluded a lease with the City of Las Vegas to use McCarran Field until construction was completed on the gunnery range airfield. In 1942, the old Las Vegas Airport was still operating commercial flights, when TWA Flight 3 crashed. On January 16, 1942, 15 minutes after takeoff from the old Las Vegas Airport (now Nellis AFB) bound for Burbank, the aircraft slammed into a sheer cliff on Potosi Mountain, 32 miles southwest of the airport, at an elevation of 7,770 ft above sea level, and was destroyed. All nineteen passengers on board, including movie star Carole Lombard, married to Hollywood legend Clark Gable, with her mother, and all three crew members, died in the crash. In 1948, Clark County purchased the airfield from Crockett to establish the Clark County Public Airport, and all commercial operations moved to the site of this airport. On December 20, 1948 the airport was renamed McCarran Field for U.S. Senator Pat McCarran, a longtime Nevada politician who authored the Civil Aeronautics Act and played a major role in developing aviation nationwide.

By this time, the airport was serving 1.5 million passengers a year, the location for the present terminals was moved from Las Vegas Boulevard South to Paradise Road, opening on March 15, 1963. The terminal, designed by Welton Becket and Associates and John Replogle, was inspired by the TWA terminal at JFK. It ultimately became the basis for the United Airlines terminal at O'Hare International Airport seven years later.

In 1978, Senator Howard Cannon pushed the Airline Deregulation Act through Congress. Airlines no longer had to get the federal government's permission to fly to a city, but instead dealt directly with airports to establish additional routes. Just after deregulation, the number of airlines serving McCarran doubled from seven to 14.

An expansion plan called McCarran 2000 was adopted in 1978 and funded by a $300 million bond issue in 1982. The three-phase plan included a new central terminal; a nine-level parking facility; runway additions and expansions; additional gates; upgraded passenger assistance facilities; and a new tunnel and revamped roadways into the airport. The first phase of McCarran 2000 opened in 1985 and was completed by 1987.

Between 1986 and 1997, Terminal 2 was built where two separate terminals had been in the 1970s and 1980s; one for American Airlines and the other for Pacific Southwest Airlines.

In the 1990s all gates and check in counters were upgraded to use a common set of computer hardware. CUTE, Common Use Terminal Equipment. This eliminates the need for each airline to have their own equipment and allows the airport to reassign gates and counters without having to address individual airlines' computer systems. While portions of Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport deployed CUTE prior to McCarran, as of 2008 it remains the only major airport in the USA that is 100 percent common use. (White Plains, N.Y., is also a 100 percent common use airport, though it has only eight gates.) McCarran's CUTE system also supports several airlines' use of the Cockpit Access Security System, or CASS. In Europe, and to some extent the Asia-Pacific rim, CUTE has been widely prevalent for much longer.

In 1998, the D Gates SE and SW wings designed by Leo A Daly and Tate & Snyder opened adding 28 gates. The D Gates project is a modification to the original McCarran 2000 plan.

On October 16, 2003, the airport installed SpeedCheck kiosks which allow customers to obtain a boarding pass without having to go to a specific airline kiosk or counter. McCarran was the first airport in the US to provide this service and the first in the world to provide the service to all airlines from a single kiosk. At the same time, 6 kiosks were activated at the Las Vegas Convention Center allowing convention attendees to get boarding passes on their way to the airport. This system was enhanced to add printing of baggage tags in 2005.

In 2003 the airport announced it was implementing a baggage-tracking system that will use Radio-frequency identification (RFID) bag tags from Matrics Inc. to improve air safety. The decision to implement the tracking system makes McCarran one of the first airports to use the RFID technology airportwide.

On January 4, 2005, the airport started offering wireless internet service at no charge. The signal is available in the boarding areas and most other public areas. While not the first airport to offer free WiFi throughout the entire facility, the airport was perhaps the first major airport with free WiFi throughout. At the time, this was the largest (2 million square feet (180,000 m²)) free wireless Internet installation in the world.

In 2005, the D Gates NE wing opened adding 10 gates.

On April 4, 2007, the consolidated rental car facility opened, located 3 miles (5 km) from the terminals (see Transportation section). The distance from the airport (including a segment of US Interstate 215) requires the facility be permanently linked via bus to the airport.

In 2008, the D Gates NW wing opened with additional 9 gates.

Due to Continental Airlines moving into the Star Alliance, along with cost-cutting moves at US Airways because of the 2008 night-flight hub closure, the US Airways Club was closed on September 13, 2009. All passengers flying on US Airways or United Airlines can access the Presidents Club in Concourse D starting on October 25. Delta Air Lines' Crown Room lounge had previously closed in 2001.

The US Airways night-flight hub operation, established in 1986 by predecessor America West Airlines, made the carrier McCarran's second busiest airline. Due to the 2008 energy crisis the night hub was closed in September 2008. US Airways closed its crew base on January 31, 2010. On August 31, 2011, US Airways announced that it will keep shrinking its operations by cutting 40% of its flights out of Las Vegas. The airline eliminated nonstop service to Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Fresno, Los Angeles, and San Francisco on November 29, 2011 leaving the airline with only flights from Las Vegas to its hubs in Charlotte, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and its focus city at Washington Reagan National Airport.