Richard N. Velotta
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As Las Vegas International Airport — er, McCarran International Airport — moves into the next phase of Terminal 3, there are still a few housekeeping matters to tend to.
Next week, some domestic air carriers will move their ticket counters into the new building. That means locals will have to start paying closer attention to where they pick up friends and family and where they park or get dropped off.
It was pretty easy to follow the first wave of airlines into the new terminal. All the international carriers went first. But starting July 31, Alaska, Frontier, JetBlue, Sun Country and Virgin America will begin using it too.
The Clark County Aviation Department has spent a bundle of money creating signage around the airport explaining which airlines depart from which terminal. But if you’re approaching from Interstate 215, you may be driving too fast to catch the information. There could be too much traffic on Paradise Road to concentrate on lists of where each airline is.
The simple rule for navigating McCarran will be “know before you go.” A quick tip for the more than half of us who fly Southwest, Allegiant and Spirit: Continue going where you’ve always gone.
Another T3 wrinkle involves McCarran’s discounted long-term parking lot on the north end of the airport. That area, known as the Economy Lot, was designed as an overflow lot but now offers uncovered parking that is cheaper than parking in the long-term garage lot.
With the opening of T3, a large-scale game of musical chairs will change the airport’s parking options. A surface lot at T3 already is open, just east of the parking garage. A new surface lot near Terminal 1 will sit just north of the existing Terminal 1 parking garage. It currently is used by airport and airline employees.
Once those employees begin parking at T3, the lot will open to the public and the Economy Lot will close.
The surface lots will cost less than covered long-term parking, but more than the Economy Lot. Maximum daily charges are $14 in the garage, $10 in surface lots and $8 for economy.
That leaves only the final disposition of now-closed Terminal 2, where international and charter flights arrived before T3. There already is plenty of unused surface parking there and with the shut-down of the Economy Lot, it’s time for McCarran officials to establish a cellphone lot.
Most of the best airports have them. Some have even invested technology in them. Phoenix and Salt Lake City, for example, have electronic boards that list arrival times.
McCarran is positioned to be one of the nation’s great airports, but the lack of a place for people to park for free while awaiting an arriving passenger damages its public perception.