McCarran International Airport

From an airplane window, Las Vegas’ pastel mirage shimmers on a clear night for 250 miles before one’s flight aligns with a runway at the city’s McCarran International Airport. On final descent and landing, most passengers’ gazes move eagerly to the distinctive hotel silhouettes of the Strip and, inevitably, to the anachronistic Luxor sphinx peering over the airfield fence. It’s only when taxiing is complete and the Strip out of sight that McCarran’s new Terminal 3 begins to impress. But that’s as it should be. After all, the terminal was not designed to turn heads, but to speed travelers into and out of the world’s most famous entertainment destination.

Nothing small ever happens in Vegas, and McCarran’s growth is no exception. Over the past 30 years, it’s tripled in size, on pace with the city itself. Bechtel has managed all six phases of the expansion and modernization since 1981, in partnership with the Clark County Department of Aviation. During this time, the company has performed a near-magical transformation, building and replacing runways, expanding terminals and airport parking, and constructing two new remote satellite concourses, among many other improvements. The $2.4 billion Terminal 3, which opened in June 2012, is the latest of these expansion and improvement projects.

With a striking, angular exterior that echoes the jagged Spring Mountains landscape, and an interior more like the Strip’s mirrored and neon finish, the terminal covers 2 million square feet. The new Terminal 3 has added 14 new gates, six of them designated for international flights, as well as an eight-level parking garage for 6,000 cars. There’s a central utility plant, a roadway system, and aircraft apron and fueling systems, taxi and limousine staging facilities, and an automated transit system. New power duct banks direct electricity to the terminal from two local substations, including a duct bank tunneled under Nevada’s busiest intersection, where Las Vegas Boulevard—the Strip—meets Tropicana Avenue.

In its peak year, McCarran Airport served nearly 48 million travelers. Terminal 3 is projected to increase capacity to 53 million. The number of passengers will increase as the self-appointed Entertainment Capital of the World lives up to its name, drawing more visitors from abroad. 

No stranger to crowds, McCarran has long managed congestion in creative ways, such as adopting a flexible “common-use” system that reduces flight delays by allowing airlines to access any open gate, and pioneering software to direct the flow of incoming baggage to carousels.

Logistics was both the biggest challenge and the biggest achievement for Bechtel. The team had to complete the vast complex over the past 30 years minimizing interference with passengers and daily operations at one of the world’s busiest airports. They juggled construction equipment, materials, and up to 2,000 workers to avoid interference with the constant stream of baggage tractors, passengers, and airline employees, and, of course half a million takeoffs and landings each year.

To help simplify the process, Bechtel’s airtight scheduling plan might have taken its cue from Vegas itself—or perhaps from the impressive facsimile of the City that Never Sleeps: New York, New York casino, in the shadow of that sphinx. Shifting some of the construction activities to the wee hours, when flights have tapered off, crews avoided disruptions while keeping the project on schedule.