Harry Reid International Airport (LAS)

Harry Reid International Airport was known as McCarran for many years. The airport code is LAS. There are 4 runways and 2 terminals, Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. I'm unsure why there isn't a Terminal 2. Terminal 1 houses gates A, B and C. The C gates are mostly Southwest AIrlines and there are several food options, as the area is fairly large. The A and B gates are in small circular areas with some slot machines and only one or two food options. You can walk between all three terminals however without having to go through security again. Terminal 3, built in 2005, houses the D and E gates and serves international flights as well as domestic flights on JetBlue, Frontier, Hawaiian, Sun Country, Alaska, Breeze and United. We've only been in Terminal 3 twice out of about 25 visits to Las Vegas, most recently in 2024 when flying on Frontier. We mostly used Southwest Airlines and Spirit Airlines before trying Frontier. The D and E gates in Terminal 3 are comparable to the C gates in Terminal 1 in size and retail options. Terminal 3 is a separate destination from Terminal 1, you need to tell the taxi driver or Uber/Lyft driver if you want to go to Terminal 1 or 3 when going to Harry Reid Airport. You can get from one terminal to the other, they're about a mile and a half apart, but there isn't an automated shuttle between them as I think there should be.

These photos illustrate how close the airport is to the Las Vegas strip. The airport property actually extends all the way to Las Vegas Blvd. although the terminals are a little over 2 miles away. There are videos on our YouTube channel of us walking from the airport to the strip and from the strip to the airport. Google Maps used to show driving routes between the strip and airport but never showed a walking or bicycling route. It looks like they've fixed that, and now show a route from Terminal 1 to the MGM Grand being 2.4 miles and taking about 54 minutes. Specifying Terminal 3 however gives a 3.7 mile 1 hour 25 minute walking route. The walk from Terminal 1 is easy if you just have a small carry on but you might not want to try walking from Terminal 3, especially in the day during the summer when it's often over 100 degrees.

Luggage pickup carousels at Harry Reid International Airport Terminal 1. This photo is from the mid 1990s, the baggage claim area probably looks different now.

These photos are also from around 1995, they were shot from the shuttle that takes passengers from the D gates to baggage claim. Whether you go to Terminal 1 or Terminal 3 for baggage claim depends on which airline you flew with.

Slot machines at Las Vegas (Harry Reid) Airport in Concourse A. A and B gates are both small and round while Concourse C is a very long rectangle, The D and E gates look more like a shopping mall. Concourse D is in between Terminals 1 and 3 while Concourse E is in Terminal 3.

C gates in Terminal 1, late 1990s when we were using Southwest Airlines for our Las Vegas trips. We saw Quentin Tarantino there once with an entourage of employees but other than that, we've had no celebrity sitings at the airport.

Terminal 1 baggage claim area as seen in 2005.