Las Vegas Traffic Flow
By Gordon Ross (HX)

Not your standard string of pearls... The Las Vegas area has grown by leaps and bounds and for the past 10 years and has consistently ranked as a top ten city in terms of growth. The support structure for this incredible leap in population had to grow as well. This includes, of course, moving thousands of more people into and out of the Las Vegas area.

Meeting this challenge, in November, 2001 the FAA and a joint powers organization comprised of the real Las Vegas Tracon and related organizations implemented vast changes to the airspace approaching and departing the Las Vegas Terminal area. The operational plan was known as the Four Post Plan and used the 'gate' concept of arrival and departures. This means that all traffic routed from a particular area 'flows' into prescribed fixes (or gates) inbound to the terminal area. Departures would be routed via prescribed fixes, known as departure gates, outbound between or around the arrival gates. The framework for this plan was building a simple rectangle around the Las Vegas area and dividing up the frame into arrival and departure gates. For example, the IDALE, McCARRAN or MINEY departures use the SHEAD fix (gate) for departures to the northwest. This departure is sandwiched between the FUZZY arrival and the CLARR arrival. This concept alternated the arrival and departure gates. But then the growing pains started.

As real traffic descended upon this plan, obvious shortcomings were appearing. This necessitated changes, and changes to those changes. You'll note that the original alternating gates have grown into a far more complex traffic flow scheme.



The Four Post Plan, at 1 1/2 years old, has undergone even more changes as the year 2003 unfolds. To reduce communications and coordination, many of the original Four Post Plan arrivals were RNAV only (TRAGR, SKEBR, KSINO and LYNSY RNAV arrivals) and had options spelled out for landing on each of the eight runways at Las Vegas McCarran. These RNAV arrivals have currently scrapped the individual RNAV routes to individual runways and are now routed to runway 25 left as the default RNAV arrival. As of this time, the author has not been able to delve into why the real TRACON has made these changes, but keep posted .. we're still digging.

The standard (default) arrivals, CLARR, FUZZY, LUXOR and MIROK have also been augmented with turboprop and non jet routes inbound to the terminal area which includes re-introduction of the CRESO3 and CROWE6 arrivals for non turbojet traffic.

If you're plugging in to the Las Vegas area, you'll find that Las Vegas is not the run of the mill 'string of pearls' traffic scheme you might find at other airports due to it's cross runway landing and departing configuration. A good reminder, keep your arrival and traffic flow charts open when working this sector. You'll find working with just 4 arrivals from the different gates an exciting challenge and if you work the Vegas area well, the satisfaction of handling such a complex traffic flow is a challenge!