Here’s why gates at McCarran’s Terminal 3 remain closed

Review-Journal reader Alan Altman recently inquired why Terminal 3 at McCarran International Airport remains closed to flight traffic.

A pilot, Altman said he felt Terminal 3 should be reopened, as the rising number of travelers returning to Las Vegas is creating issues.

“As a commercial pilot who flies out of LAS we experience gate delays daily,” Altman wrote. “We are trying to fit more aircraft into less gates and for no reason. What really bothers me is the amount of money spent on wasted fuel and flights being made late for no reason.”

Altman is referring to the E gates in Terminal 3, as those 14 gates have been closed since July.

The ticketing lobby, baggage claim, garage and primary checkpoint at Terminal 3 never closed, according to McCarran spokesman Chris Jones. The only change was that airlines that used E gates have been operating out of D gates instead since the start of the pandemic.

The latest passenger volume numbers available show that 2.9 million travelers passed through McCarran’s gates in April, a 13 percent increase over March’s 2.6 million. Although volume continues to increase month to month, April’s numbers were still 32 percent below 2019’s 4.3 million passengers.

So, although McCarran is inching closer to “normal” passenger volume, data shows it has not yet caught up.

A key factor in the E gates’ continued closure is the lack of international travelers, Jones said.

Of the 2.9 million passengers in April, 31,214 were international travelers — 90 percent less than the 322,256 international passengers seen in April 2019. In fact, through April, there have been 77,969 international travelers in 2021, 94 percent behind the first four months of 2019.

“Without a robust international schedule that includes our typical flights from Canada and Europe and Asia, we’re currently able to accommodate international service (i.e. Mexico) using the northeast wing of the D gates,” Jones said in an email. “All international flights to/from LAS have been gated at D since last July.”

Jones said airport officials review the airlines’ published schedule several times a month, and there hasn’t yet been a sufficient increase in domestic flights to warrant opening Terminal 3.

“Looking forward through the end of June, LAS remains able to gate all flights on the books using the A, B, C and D concourses,” Jones said. “Even at the busiest hour of June’s schedule, we’d have more than a dozen gates available within those four areas.”

Jones said keeping all the current flights in the same area makes sense for multiple reasons.

“Keeping flight operations within these four concourses allows us to focus our resources rather than spreading things too thinly for services such as concessions (which want a critical mass of customers for business efficiency), as well as better concentrating our custodial services to address needs during peak periods,” Jones said.

As travelers return to Las Vegas and demand nears the point that would warrant reopening the E gates, Jones said McCarran will be ready to do so at a moment’s notice.

“When demand reaches the point that we need to reopen the E gates, we’re prepared to do so on very short notice,” Jones said. “We aren’t at that point yet, but pending schedule updates from the domestic and international carriers, that could happen within a few weeks’ time.”

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter. Send questions and comments to roadwarrior@reviewjournal.com.