Planning Takes Off Again for Second Las Vegas Airport
Posted on: May 19, 2025, 07:46h.
Last updated on: May 20, 2025, 09:15h.
- The environmental impact statement process has restarted on a second Las Vegas airport
- First proposed in 1998, the Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport will be built 30 miles south of the Strip and serve 35 million travelers per year
- It’s already seven years behind schedule, and failure to reach agreement on environmental issues would mean further delays
More than 25 years after it was first proposed, work on the Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport (SNSA) is once again throttling forward. According to The Las Vegas Review-Journal, three public hearings are scheduled in late July to hear testimony about the facility’s environmental impact.
The Ivanpah Valley Airport, as it was initially called in 1998, was proposed for 6,500 acres of former Bureau of Land Management desert 30 miles south of Las Vegas. Located between the towns of Jean in the north and Primm in the south, it was to have been bordered by the I-15 on the west and the Union Pacific Railroad on the east.
The airport — since renamed and downscaled to 5,752 acres in the same area — is expected to include two runways and a terminal building designed to handle up to 35 million travelers per year.
That’s the figure deemed necessary to supplement air traffic at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), which is expected to reach its maximum capacity of 63–65 million passengers annually by 2030.
Even if construction starts on time (by 2029) and the SNSA opens on time (by 2037), Harry Reid will have already reached or exceeded capacity for seven years by then.
Talk About a Flight Delay!
SNSA’s environmental impact statement process was tabled for about two years following the 2008 financial crisis. It was suspended again in 2010, reportedly due to unresolved environmental concerns. (Its impact on the desert tortoise and a rare plant called the white-margined penstemon were cited in a 2024 KNPR article.)
The process was halted again by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, but was restarted in 2023 due to a combination of economic recovery and the renewed passenger growth driven by the region’s booming new sports sector.
The area under review in the environmental study includes the 5,752 acres proposed for the airport as well as 2,430 proposed for flood mitigation infrastructure and a 17K-acre noise compatibility area, according to the R-J.
Both the desert tortoise and the white-margined penstemon are expected to once again be an issue with wildlife conservationists.
Airport planners haven’t determined which airlines would fly out of SNSA. But how to get 35 million people from SNSA to the Strip should be a function of Brightline West. Expected to open in 2028, the high-speed railway is expected to shuttle passengers between the new airport and a stop currently being planned for 2-3 miles south of the Strip.
Last Comments ( 1 )
I think will never happen they will find more raisins to dilaette