Las Vegas airport to be renamed after former Sen. Harry Reid

A resolution to change the name of McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas to honor former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D) was approved Tuesday by the Clark County Commission.

Commissioners voted unanimously to rename the location the Harry Reid International Airport after the former majority leader, who left the Senate in 2016.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will need to approve the name change before it is official, The Associated Press reported.

If approved, the rebranding will cost about $2 million, which will be covered by private donors, according to the Las Vegas Sun. The airport’s three-letter FAA identifier, LAS, wouldn’t change.

Commissioner Tick Segerblom, who proposed the name change, argued that the airport’s current namesake, former Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nev.), doesn’t represent “the diversity of our community.” McCarran has been accused of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia, the Sun noted.

The airport was renamed in 1968 to pay tribute to him and his work building up the aviation industry, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Democratic Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak expressed his approval for the rebranding in a Monday statement, writing that Reid “has spent his life and his career lifting up Nevada to what it has become today.”

Reid has always been a “fearless champion” for the state, he added.

“His is a story of a man worth honoring by renaming the airport in the city and state to which he has given so much,” Sisolak said.

LAS served 22.2 million passengers in 2020 and had been slated to pass its 2019 record of 51.5 million passengers before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, according to a news release from the airport.