McCarran cutbacks: some temp. gate closures
 

Looks like McCarran will be closing some piers and relocating some airlines in the next 6 months.

"The rotunda will close in February and will prompt relocation of WestJet and USAir. In July there are plans to close the southeast wing of the D concourse, which would prompt relocation of American."

http://www.lvrj.com/business/37134209.html

I don't fly US anymore anyway, but the rotunda was always such a mess... so not sure I'd be sad to see it go. Good thing for UA flyers that McCarran built the new D5x section and UA moved to it before the cuts.

Can you tell me where is D5X wings? Can you please give me more source about new wings at the new concourse D? I knows that I have been there at LAS recently. It was very old concourse A/B is too dark for me but, I couldn't see it at all. I think it will be demolished old piers. It will expect to being replacement new concourse to need installion new Customs & Immigrations Facility at the terminal 2.

It makes sense to close one rotunda - US Airways is down to 70 flights a day at LAS, and the most gates they use at any time is 14 gates around 8 p.m. If the airport administration really wanted to, they could close down both rotundas on Concourse A and just leave the walkway that leads to those rotundas (there are two gates on the left there right away) and still be able to maintain US' operations and not have it affect WN's operations in the B gates.

As for Concourse D, the plan as I understand it is as follows:

With the SE pier closing, there are three airlines affected: American, Allegiant and Northwest.

Northwest will move to the SE pier and use Delta's gates - DL primarily uses 5 gates at LAS, and they require 2 widebody gates (D38/D40). They have 22 daily flights, while NW has 12 daily flights.

Some peak times for Delta (not NW) at LAS - early morning: DL has 6 overnights (3 737-800, 1 757-200, 2 767-300). At late-morning, DL needs 4 gates (6 departures between 1040a and 1216p, the 2 SLC departures can use the same gate). The rest of the time, DL can get by with 3 gates, until the overnights start coming in at 6:19p). For comparison, NW needs 3 gates for their operation. They only need 1 for overnight, while they need 3 at midday (same times as Delta). Thus, Delta realistically needs 7 gates at LAS to run the full operation, and can probably get do it with 6 gates.

Thus, solution for Delta: give Delta D34 (which is Virgin's gate) and give Virgin D32 which is generally used by Allegiant. If Delta wants 7 gates, give Delta D32 as well, and move Virgin America to D31 (the former UAX gate).

American: Move Continental over to the SE pier, where their PC is. CO needs 4 gates, so they can have D33, D35, D37, D39 (the former UA mainline gates). That fills up that pier, unless DL needs only 6 gates - that leaves a gate for Allegiant. American takes CO's gates - they can run most of their operation on 2 gates, but really needs 3. CO's gates make sense. Thus, the NW pier looks like this: AA 3 gates, AS 2 gates (though they really only need 1...), F9 1 gate, Midwest 1 gate, Spirit 1 gate, JetBlue 2 gates. That leaves one gate in that pier.

However, with LAS being a CUTE airport, they can easily have Allegiant use gates in that pier, as YX only has 2 flights and Spirit has one flight that don't overlap, so that frees up a gate. So that's 2 gates there that Allegiant can use. Add in free gates on the new NWern pier and you might get 3 gates there. That might be enough to accomodate Allegiant.

Looking at either of the two links (second is a hefty 3.6mb .pdf),

http://www.airportterminalmaps.com/m...minal-map.html
http://mappery.com/maps/Las-Vegas-Mc...rminal-Map.pdf

the D50s gates are next to the D31-D43 gates, near where the tram route is shown. It is a much newer and IMO more pleasant area and certainly a much shorter walk to the tram than previously (as anyone who has done the D43 trek will attest).

Eh...the trek isn't too bad. Then again, I tend to stop by the President's Club for a beer or two after getting off the plane and before I go to the taxi stand.

Just noticed that UA's site has an updated map that gives some idea of where the new gates are:

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,52801,00.html