Is Harry Reid International Airport at capacity?

It’s a tough question airport executives have been wrestling with for years, but efforts are in motion to answer and respond to it.

The airport that serves Las Vegas had a record 57.6 million passengers in 2023 and is on track to surpass that total this year.

The estimated capacity has fluctuated over the years and Clark County so far has successfully responded to the growth.

When the 14-gate Terminal 3 opened in 2012, passenger numbers were at around 41.7 million and airport officials estimated capacity to be at around 63 million a year. In recent years, some experts have bumped that estimate up to 65 million a year by working with airlines to smooth schedules to avoid peak periods that can lead to gate delays.

With passenger counts up by more than 10 million passengers in a decade, Reid officials have already begun addressing future growth with both long-term and short-term solutions.

The long-term answer is a new airport — specifically, the Clark County’s planned Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport in the Ivanpah Valley. Environmental studies are underway on the land south of Las Vegas and north of Primm.

The county’s most recent estimates are that the new airport wouldn’t be ready to open until 2037.

The next phase of the short-term solution to capacity issues is expected to be addressed in early December when the 13-member Airline Airport Affairs Committee at Reid meets to learn more about a multibillion-dollar plan to expand Terminal 1 from 39 to 65 gates as a stopgap measure to provide additional capacity before the new airport is built.

The expansion and modernization project would also build two multimodal centers that would add airport parking and redesign roadways that would separate direct connections between the two airport terminals from airport bypass traffic. No vote is expected at the scheduled meeting, but the committee must review and accept the plan before it can be implemented.

Clark County Aviation Director Rosemary Vassiliadis and two airport planning associates, Senior Director of Aviation James Chrisley and Managing Director of Planning Bryant Holt, briefed the Clark County Commission on the plan last month. Vassiliadis has said the expansion isn’t as much a capacity booster as it is a bid to provide quality customer service to existing airport users.

The proposed expansion and modernization of Terminal 1 will take around four years to complete.

While airport officials are still working through details of the project, the intent is to stay ahead of growth while the Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport project is on track.

Details about how the county will manage both airports and how the two runways and terminal in the Ivanpah Valley will be used to address capacity issues won’t be determined until later.

In the meantime, capacity will be addressed with the Reid expansion as the airport’s use continues to grow.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.