The Las Vegas-based international airport no longer bears the name of erstwhile Senator Pat McCarran. Federal officials, local officials, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak and the Harry Reid family were all present at the ceremony that marked the transition.
The Clark County Commission agreed to change the name of McCarran International Airport earlier in 2021 to honor Harry Reid, former senator and a native of Searchlight.
The total estimated cost of the transition is $7 million, and private contributions covered the amount. The US had got over $4 million to the rebranding of the airport as of October this year.
Assigning a name to the airport and branding for it are local government choices. The Federal Aviation Administration finishes some administrative duties, which include air traffic control (ATC) map revisions, before recognizing any changes.
When the commission meets on December 21, 2021, it plans on amending references to McCarran that come in the county code to the new name of the airport.
The renaming decision of the county means that the airport name no longer honors late US Senator and Nevadan Pat McCarran. For your information, McCarran was an anti-Semite and racist. The name now honors Reid, a Democratic Party Member who retired as a Senate member four years ago.
Democratic Party member McCarran also served as a Senator from 1933 to 1954; since the year 1968, the airport had been named after him.
The code and an important FAA identifier of the airport, LAS, stays the same.