Waiting grows for foreign travelers despite new McCarran terminal

Despite larger and better facilities with the new Terminal 3, it now takes foreign travelers longer to clear customs and immigration at McCarran International Airport than it did a year ago.

The average wait before passengers are free to leave the airport have risen in 12 of 14 comparable hourly bands measured by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the period July 1 through Aug. 15 in comparison with the same period last year. With more booths for inspectors, the $2.4 billion Terminal 3 was designed to handle as many as 2,000 passengers an hour for passport checks compared with just 800 at the now-closed Terminal 2.

Still, average wait times have risen to 41 minutes during two of the hours and run at least 30 minutes during three others, compared with the longest time of 27 minutes at Terminal 2. The maximum wait times at Terminal 3 have more than doubled in many instances, including a pair of hourly slots where the wait topped 100 minutes.

"We have met with airlines and stakeholders since January and have adjusted schedules to accommodate the peak times," said Customs spokeswoman Lee Harty. "(The longer waits) should be resolved in mid-September."

Several of the international carriers have scheduled most of their flights on Thursdays and Sundays, but others spread them through the week. The agency will boost its local staffing by 25 percent, she said, but declined to give numbers. She added that "seasoned" officers are being transferred to McCarran.

However, she did not explain why the wait times have climbed.

Randall Walker director of the Clark County Department of Aviation, said international passenger counts have risen even though customs staffing has remained static. Terminal 3 has 28 booths compared with 16 at Terminal 2, but no more than 12 are ever open at one time.

For the first six months of this year, the international passenger count rose 12.8 percent, to 1.37 million. But one-third of them flew on WestJet, which means they went through customs and passport checks before leaving Canada.

In some of the time bands, the number of passengers did not matter. For the hour starting at 6 p.m., for example, Terminal 2's average wait was 20 minutes and an average of 241 people were processed; at Terminal 3 it's been a 26-minute wait for an average of 185 people.

In addition, Walker said Terminal 3 has contributed in a backhanded way to the longer reported wait times. The Customs and Border Protection clock starts when the plane door opens and runs until all of the passengers get through.

In Terminal 2, with four gates, jets sometimes had to sit on the apron and wait for a place to park, especially during peak times. The seven international gates in Terminal 3 have eliminated that bottleneck, Walker said, so passengers now wait in line, with the official clock running, instead of on the plane where it did not.

"Now, it's very, very rare that we don't have gate space," Walker said. "Before, it was not so rare."

While McCarran has never been a quick place for clearance, it has fallen further behind other airports including Detroit, Seattle, Atlanta and Houston, even though they have much larger international flight schedules. Houston will use as many as 53 booths at peak times, while Atlanta sometimes opens 63.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at toreiley@review
journal.com or 702-387-5290.