McCarran International Airport- Las Vegas, Nevada
Abstract
The McCarran International Airport is deemed to be the ninth busiest in the US and tops in Nevada County. It accounts for sixty percent of the passengers arriving at the Nevada County. The airport was built in 1942 by George Cockett an American Aviator. The airport has undergone major changes and restructuring which has turned it into a modern international airport. The economic, political and social role of the airport cannot be undermined. The airport contributes to the income of the county and thus provides employment to some locals of the bigger population of the Nevada State. Socially, the terminal allows the relocation of people and brings the visitors to Las Vegas. TSC security provider controls the safety of the airport.
Introduction
Airport business is in the transport and logistics industry. It is capital intensive to engage in this kind of business. McCarran International Airport is of great importance to the economy of Nevada. The airfield has a significant impact on the economy because most of the passengers who use the facility are the business people and the tourists to the region. The importance of the airport cannot go ignored since Los Vegas is one of the largest destinations for visitors in the American continent.
The airport provides services to the city of Las Vegas and the surrounding environments of Clark County in southern Nevada. It is located in the town of Paradise five miles from the central business district of Las Vegas. The airport is strategically located between Interstate highways 15 and 515 that allow its accessibility (Malamud, 2013). To the north, it is accessible through Tropicana Avenue and by Las Vegas Beltway to the south. The airport has four runways, which enable it to serve an estimated number of forty-five thousand passengers on an annual basis. It is known to provide services that are the focused city of Allegiant and Southwest airlines that are both domestic and international serving globally.
History of the Airport
The airport ownership remains solely to Clark County. The Clark County Department of Aviation conducts the operations of the airport. George Crockett first built the airport, an American aviator under the name Alamo Airport. Six years later George sold the airfield to the Clark County and established the field as Clark County Public Airport, which assumed all commercial activities. The name of the facility emanates from Pat McCarran, who is a former Nevada senator. The name resulted from the contributions he made towards the establishment and development of aviation both in Las Vegas and on a national gauge. According to Marcus (2011), the airport came into existence back in the year 1942 and opened to commercial flights in 1948. Since its conception in 1948, the airport has developed and grown laterally with the community. During this time, the airport was providing services to one million and five hundred thousand passengers a year. It is highly recognized for providing a convenient and widespread connection between Southern Nevada and most cities not only across the United States but also around the globe.
The airport continued to thrive under the Clark County that saw the construction of the present terminals that were moved to Paradise Road from Las Vegas Boulevard South in 1963. Welton Becket, John Replogle, and associates designed the terminals. In 1978, an expansion plan for the airport called McCarran 2000 was adopted, and a three hundred million U.S dollars bond was used to fund the project. A three phase plan was laid which included the expansion and addition of runaway, a new central terminal, additional gates, a nine –level parking facility and a new tunnel.by the time the plan was completed the airport had upgraded into an international airport. The airport has seen the accommodation of modern technology. For example, the installation of the Speed Check kiosks in 2003 and the implementation of the baggage tracking system that used radio frequency identification in the same year (Marcus, 2011). On January 4, 2005, the airport began providing free internet services.
Currently, that link carries an average of about forty-three million passengers each year through McCarran Airport. The airport ranks as the eighth-busiest airfield in the United States and the entire globe, it ranks as the 26th-busiest airport. The measurement of the variable number of origin and destination (abbreviated as “O&D”) travelers; the airport takes the second position as the busiest airport in the United States. The majority of the McCarran Airport passengers, about eighty percent, consists of tourists and business travelers, making it the first and last stop in Las Vegas for roughly 17 million visitors each year.
Airside
Airside is the area of an airport used by aircraft for loading and unloading, and landing and take offs. It beyond security checks, passport and customs control area in an airport terminal. The area includes places accessible by the aircraft including the taxiways, runways, and aprons. At McCarran’s airside operations include airfield maintenance, airfield escorts, airport control center, ramp control and safety and efficiency landing and taking offs. Dennis Anderson is the current assistant director of aviation Airside operations at McCarran International Airport. The airport has four runways: Runway 7L/25R of 14510*150 feet, Runway7R/25Lof 10526*150 feet, Runway 1L/19R of 8985*150feet and Runway 1R/19L of 9975*150feet.
The airport has used concrete to resurface all its run away with runway 7L/25R being the last to be resurfaced in April of 2016. The same run away is the longest at the airport and services a third of the yearly airport traffic. It is also the third-longest run away in the United States. Parallel to Runway 7L/25R is 7R/25L that was commissioned in 1991. The other two runways are located to the western side of the airport. 1L/19R was originally a short runway built to accommodate light flights before it was lengthened and widened in 1997 (Malamud, 2013). Between the two sets of parallel runways was runway 14/32, which has been decommissioned.
Landside
This area is the public section of the terminal, which is situated in the zone before reaching the checks points for security. In the landside area, it is where cars and taxi are packed, access roads and public transport railway stations. McCarran’s landside operations department employees are responsible for parking enforcement for vehicles, bike patrol and taxi loading. They monitor passenger pick up ensure safety and comfortable pick up, they also provide customer care service such as showing directions, battery jump starts and tire inflation for customer vehicles.
The airport connector is leading traffic road in Nevada that makes the airport very busy. About 98,000 passengers use this road daily meaning that many are connecting to the airport. Based on the above statistics, the airport is surrounded by busy roads that make it a busy airport with most of the customers being tourists. The Paradise Road provides access to McCarran Airport to the north and the south by McCarran Airport Connector that connects to the Las Vegas Beltways. Both Terminal 1 and 3 have their parking garages. Each parking is divided into two where any economy class that charges lower parking rates and another section for large vehicles. The airport also provides complimentary shuttle transportation between the terminals. The services of the shuttle transport are free to the customers between Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. In addition to the land side in April 2007, the airport also opened a consolidated rental car facility about five kilometers from the airport. The facility has an allocated twenty-eight acres of land, providing shelter for multiple rental car firms with five thousand parking locations on various levels.
Part 139 and Compliance
According to (Cason et al.,2010), 14 CFR Part 139 demands the Federal Aviation Authority to provide airport operating permits to airports that; delivering services to not only the scheduled but the unscheduled air carriers that are large (with more over 30 seats). Alternatively, those airports that serve air carriers with scheduled activities in airplanes with more than nine seats, but fewer than thirty-one seats. Also, the FAA administrator ought to have a certificate. The McCarran airport is falling under the above classes it has a license that authorizes all its flights. The Airport Operating Certificates play the role of ensuring safety in air transportation. For a certificate acquisition, an airport must comply with the agreement of abiding by certain operational and safety standards (Federal Aviation Administration, 2016), provide for such elements that promote firefighting, and rescue equipment. These verifications differ and are based on the size of the airport as well as the type of flights that the airport houses. The McCarran airport being a large airport and accommodating large aircraft mostly has been issued with the certificate to support its operations. The regulation, however, provides an allowance for the FAA to provide some exemptions to those airports that provide services to a lesser number of passengers per and where some conditions might develop instances of financial hardship. However, the certificate does not apply to the airports that are controlled by the U.S government.
Security
Source: GIS Projects (2015)
In McCarran International Airport, there are five security checkpoints (as noted in the above pictorial repreentation), (three checkpoints at Terminal one and the other two in terminal three) in which the transportation security administration is in charge. They include A&B checkpoint, gate Annex C, as well as the C& D security checkpoint in terminal one and Level 2 checkpoint and level Zero checkpoint in terminal three. The security checkpoint A/B is located on Level 2 of Terminal 1 having eight screening points which serve airlines that are operational from both gate A, and gate B. Gate C Annex is situated on the second Level of Terminal 1 exactly above the ticketing check-in areas of the south end of this particular terminal. Thirteen screening lanes serve airlines operating Gate C. Finally on Terminal 1; there is the C& D security checkpoint that is situated on Level 2 of Terminal 1 above the Baggage Claim section. The checkpoint has seventeen screening lanes at the D Gates that serves airlines operating at gates D. on the other; the C Gates side has two checkpoints that services airlines are running at the C Gates (Leone and Liu, 2005).
Terminal 3 has two security checkpoints. Level Zero Checkpoint that has seventeen screening lanes that are supposed to service airlines operating from D Gates, however, it is not operational yet. The Checkpoint in level 2 that is located in the third terminal in the Level 2 section having fourteen screening lanes which provide service to both the international as well as the domestic airlines operating at Terminal 3 (Leone and Liu, 2005).Before proceeding to the departure gates, every passenger must pass through either one of the five screening security checking areas. At these checkpoints, the transport and safety administration officers process passengers and their carry –on bags. They look out for the current government issued identification document as well as a boarding pass which is valid for the said flight. In terminal one and terminal three, airlines such as Air Canada, JetBlue, Alaska a, Hawaiian, United, Virgin American as well as the South Eastern carry out an expedited screening initiative in which McCarran International Airport participates. This TSA pre-check promotes aviation security by putting more focus on prescreening individuals on the voluntary bias to take part to hasten the travel experience (Leone and Liu, 2005). The McCarran’s airport TSA has collaborated with U.S Customs and Border Protection on this pre- flight screening initiative.
TSA determines the passengers eligible for the hasten screening in which their information is noted in the barcode of the boarding pass of the passenger’s. For the passengers who undergo the expedited screening they are no longer to remove personal items. The transport and security administration always include both random and irregular security control activities in the airport. In this unpredictable security measures, no individual is guaranteed to hasten to the screen.
Budget and Finances
The McCarran International Airport fell under the Clark County authority but treated as a separate entity. The budget and financial information of the airport are prepared provided for in a quarterly, semiannually and on an annual basis. The financial department must produce the financial information of the airport, which includes the financial statements. An annual financial report of the company is provided to the public at the sum of every given financial year. The financial declaration of the airport is audited and presented to the Nevada County. The Clark County finance department provides a budget allocation of the airport. Any additional allocations of the budget are borrowed from the state of Nevada such as those of expansion of the airport.
The largest source of the airport income is the air tickets that are purchased by the travelers. The McCarran Airport has a huge income of an estimated twenty-eight billion U.S dollars. The revenue is used to cater for all the services that take place at the airport. Most of the budget allocation of the airport goes to paying the salaries and wages of its workers. The budgetary allocation takes care of the maintenance of the airport and the free services offered by the airport such as the transportation and internet services. A huge budget is allocated for the technology since the airport tries to keep up with the dynamic world of technology.
Source: Alonzo (2016)
The McCarran remain the busiest airport in Nevada as illustrated by the above table. The tables shows the numbr of passangers that use the airport from January through December in 2014. The figures were obtained from the department of Aviation of Clark County.
All fiscal operations of the McCarran airport fall under the county airport system. The county department of aviation discusses financial information of the airports in the Nevada state. The department is a company fund of Clark County in Nevada. It is responsible for all the services for the aviation facilities operated and owned by the county. The county department of aviation is a self-supporting organization that generates income from airport system customers to funding operation costs and debt services requirements. Passengers' facility charges fund the capital projects, bond issuances and also, generate cash flows from the net income.
Economic, Political and Social Role
McCarran airport is a potent hub to the economy of the Las Angles City, Nevada State and the American nation as a whole. It contributes directly and indirectly which bring a total effect to the economy. The airport provides two hundred thousand and five hundred jobs directly to the people. Every year the airport provides 114,391 jobs in Clark County (Green, 2007). There is no information available showing how much more employment the airport provide to the people indirectly. Some of the examples of jobs given by the McCarran airport include the security personnel jobs, mechanic work, flight attendants, ticket agents, pilots, drivers and the technological department resource.
The airport also provides huge revenue to the state of Nevada. An estimated 28.4 U.S dollars per annum is the current income. The income is for the benefit of the society and providing payment to the huge working population. An estimated four billion U.S dollars are paid as labor income. McCarran airport like any other modern airport is encouraging and promoting the world of technology. Innovation in the field of technology has led to the further development and growth of the airport. The extension of the airport has, in fact, boosted tourism. The airport is capable of accommodating more flights in a year. More tourist visiting Los Angles and the state of Nevada use this airport. The visitors provide revenue both to the airport and the state of Nevada which support tax provision to the county government. The airport is the number one tax provider airport to the state of Nevada.
Indirectly, the airport has provided customers with the hotels and other entertainment joints. The airport caters for an approximated forty-two percent of the estimated forty-one million visitors in the city of Las Vegas. By accommodating more airplanes, the airport has encouraged more flights, and more airlines have been able to book a terminal for their planes (Green, 2007). In addition to the economic benefits, the airport is a large purchaser of industrial goods such as construction materials and consumers goods such as cleaning and food substances. It supports the growth of other companies by being a consumer.
Socially, the McCarran airport has contributed to the quality of life by enhancing the population’s leisure and cultural experiences. Las Vegas, being a preferred destination for most visitors in the United States, use the airport to access the famous tourism city. The airport improves the living standards of the people working in it by enhancing their economic life. The airport provides much employment to the people in Nevada Valley, directly working at the airport and indirectly in hotels, entertainment joints, and road service providers. Airport is also known to be contributors to sustainable development. By facilitating trade and tourism, it promotes economic growth, increases revenue and provides jobs.
The McCarran Airport is has a huge role politically. In the beginning, the airport was named after a politician, and the name still stands even today. Politicians have used this port to fight for their reelection by promising the people of Nevada expansion and development. Most politicians have improved the state of the airport and in return, the airport has provided a favor. Politically it the field have also been an excellent destination for most politicians who have visited the state of Nevada for political issues (Green, 2007).
Conclusion
The McCarran International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the state of Nevada. The airport provides services to about sixty percent of the people who visits the City of Las Angles. Since 1948, the airport has developed into an international airport. The growth is physical through expansion of its run away, terminals parking lots and the gates. Its development has enabled it to accommodate more airplanes, vehicles and people eventually increasing the operations of the airport. The airport has beefed up its security measures even as it patakes its certified economic, social and political roles on a day to day basis.
References
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