Las Vegas · NV
LAS — Harry Reid International Airport
Minutes from the Strip, with two terminals that do not connect airside
Harry Reid International is unusually close to the destination it serves — the southern end of the Strip is barely a couple of miles away, which is why transfers here are measured in minutes rather than the half hour most US cities require.
It is also a significant airport for travel to Mexico, with strong demand to Guadalajara, Mexico City and the Pacific resorts driven by both leisure travel and the city's large Mexican-American population.
Terminals and how they connect
Terminal 1
Handles the majority of domestic flights, arranged around lettered concourses connected by an internal tram.
Terminal 3
Handles international arrivals and a share of domestic flights. There is no Terminal 2. Critically, Terminals 1 and 3 are not connected airside — moving between them means leaving security and taking a shuttle bus on public roads.
Getting into Las Vegas
Times below are realistic ranges rather than best cases. Rail journeys keep to a timetable; road journeys do not, and treating the two the same is how people miss flights.
Taxi or ride-hailing
10–20 minutes to the Strip, 15–25 to downtown
The default and genuinely quick. Ride-hailing pickup is from designated areas in the parking structures rather than at the kerb, which adds a walk.
Public bus
30–50 minutes to the Strip
Routes serve the airport and cost a fraction of a taxi. Slow and awkward with luggage, but a real option.
Hotel shuttle
20–50 minutes depending on stops
Shared shuttles serve most major hotels. Cheaper than a taxi for a solo traveller and slower, since they drop at several properties.
Connecting through LAS
Las Vegas is overwhelmingly an origin-and-destination airport rather than a connecting hub, so most passengers are starting or ending their trip. If you do have to change between Terminal 1 and Terminal 3, treat it as leaving the airport and returning — the shuttle runs landside and you clear security again. Allow at least two hours.
Worth knowing before you fly
Ride-hailing pickup is not at the kerb
Designated pickup zones are in the parking structures, which means a walk and, at Terminal 1, a lift. On a hot day with luggage this is a longer journey than the app suggests.
Departure peaks are severe
The airport empties in waves as conventions and weekends end, and security queues on a Sunday afternoon bear no relation to a Tuesday morning. Check the day rather than assuming a typical airport pattern.
The Mexico routes matter here
Las Vegas is among the larger US markets for travel to Mexico, and the low-cost Mexican carriers serve it. Fares to the Mexican interior are frequently better from here than the distance would suggest.
Terminal assignments, transit timetables and fares all change. Confirm the details that matter to your trip with the airport or transport operator before you travel.
Will you make your connection at LAS?
Most of what a tight connection costs was never about LAS. Border formalities, a bag that is not through-checked and a door that closes before departure are the same at every airport, and they are usually what strands people — so the sum below is real arithmetic even though we hold no transfer times for LAS.
45 minutes to spare
You have 60 minutes after the delay. This connection needs about 15. Enough room for a gate change.
This is the floor, before you walk anywhere. Every minute below holds at any airport, because none of it is a property of LAS — it is border formalities, baggage and a closing gate. Add your terminal change above to finish the sum.
| 15m | Gate closes before departure | typical published gate cutoff |
| 15m | needed in total | |
Arithmetic, not a prediction — we hold no data that would let us put a probability on your flight, so we do not pretend to. The gate cutoff is a typical published figure; confirm your airline's. Your airline's app knows your actual gates, which we do not.
For four hubs we have read the operator's own transfer figures and datestamped them, which lets the arithmetic run without asking you anything: DFW, IAH, MIA and LAX.
If your flight through LAS is cancelled or badly delayed
LAS in the DOT's own numbers
Departures from Las Vegas as the carriers filed them with the US Department of Transportation for May 2026. This is the figure that decides whether a delay here is anybody's fault but the weather's.
LAS is the 5th-busiest airport we cover, its 25.9% late rate is 3.5 points worse than the 22.4% median, the 9th-worst here, and 81.6% of the filed delay minutes were coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft rather than extreme weather or air traffic control — above the 74.6% median, which matters because a delay coded to the carrier is the kind a contract can be held to.
- Departures filed
- 13,784
- Over 15 min late
- 25.9%
- Cancelled
- 0.6%
- Carrier delay + late-arriving aircraft
- 81.6%
The last figure is the share of filed delay minutes coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft rather than extreme weather or air traffic control. It sums two BTS fields and is not a BTS field itself, and it establishes no fault: the late-arriving code records that the inbound aircraft was late, not what delayed it. The reasoning, and the objection to it, are set out in the airline accountability index. Summed across reporting carriers only, so a hub carrying a lot of non-reporting regional traffic reads better here than a traveller experiences it.
These are monthly aggregate filing codes. They cannot establish what caused your individual flight, whether it was within the carrier's control, or whether compensation is owed.
The departures from LAS most likely to run late
Every carrier and destination out of Las Vegas with enough filed departures to measure, worst first. A route missing from this list flies too thinly for a percentage to mean anything, which is a reason to withhold it rather than to soften it.
What the airlines flying here have committed to in writing
Under 14 CFR § 253.4 a carrier's Conditions of Carriage are incorporated into your ticket, which makes them enforceable terms rather than a customer-service policy. Below is what each carrier with filed departures from LAS commits to when the disruption is theirs. These 4 have contract text we have read ourselves.
American Airlines
Ask for the seatAmerican Airlines' contract commits to their own next available flight and says nothing about who sold the ticket.
Rebooking your delayed / canceled flight. Read from the contract on 2026-07-29. Source
Delta Air Lines
Ask for the seatDelta Air Lines' contract commits to their own next available flight and says nothing about who sold the ticket.
Rule 19.A, Delta's Liability in the Event of Schedule Changes, Delays and Flight Cancellations. Read from the contract on 2026-07-29. Source
United Airlines
We hold no textUnited Airlines' contract page refuses automated requests, so we cannot verify what it currently says and will not paraphrase it.
Not yet transcribed. Source
Southwest Airlines
Ask for the refundSouthwest Airlines' contract only says it may rebook you, so there is no seat to demand — but it names a refund as your remedy.
Section 9.b(1)(i). Read from the contract on 2026-07-29. Source
AS, B6, F9 also file departures from LAS. We have not transcribed their Conditions of Carriage, so this page says nothing about what they promise rather than guessing.
Get the exact clause and a script to read themThe federal floor, underneath any contract
Statutory minimums, so no airline's contract and no agency's terms can go below them. They follow your itinerary rather than LAS, so each one is set out in full on its own tool:
How LAS compares with airports of its size
A late-departure rate means little on its own, so these are the airports sitting immediately either side of LAS on the same table. Each figure is the share of departures leaving more than fifteen minutes behind schedule, from the same Department of Transportation filing.
Which airlines run late out of LAS
Departures from LAS as filed with the US Department of Transportation, worst first. Only carriers with at least 300 departures in the month appear, so a carrier missing from this table flies here too thinly to measure fairly rather than perfectly.
| Airline | Departures | Over 15 min late | Carrier delay + late-arriving aircraft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 7,611 | 30.8% | 85.6% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,159 | 22.7% | 76.2% |
| Alaska Airlines | 642 | 22.6% | 63.6% |
| United Airlines | 1,295 | 22.5% | 61.1% |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,382 | 17.9% | 90.4% |
| JetBlue Airways | 381 | 17.3% | 79.7% |
| American Airlines | 1,314 | 15.7% | 83.9% |
The last column is the share of filed delay minutes coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft, as opposed to extreme weather or air traffic control. It records how the minutes were filed, not who was at fault. Each airline guide carries that carrier's national record; the accountability index sets out why late inbound aircraft is grouped with carrier delay, and publishes the whole table as a downloadable file.
Figures cover May 2026, a single reporting month, from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics On-Time Performance database. Retrieved 2026-07-28. Reporting under 14 CFR part 234 covers domestic US scheduled service only, so no international route appears — including anything to or from Mexico.
Airlines based at LAS
Carriers based here, which usually means more non-stops and more daily frequencies to fall back on if something goes wrong.
Routes through LAS
Flying from Las Vegas
Stuck on hold?
Talk to an independent agent instead
Airline phone queues and chatbots are where a rebooking stalls. Our agents work these routes daily and will look at what is actually available, walk through the letter you are about to send, and tell you what a desk agent will and will not do. We are not the airline and we do not file claims for you — the templates above are yours to send.
FAQ
LAS — common questions
Terminals, transfers and getting into the city.
Are Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 connected at Las Vegas airport?
Not airside. Moving between them requires exiting security and taking a shuttle bus on public roads, then clearing security again. If your itinerary involves both, allow at least two hours.
How far is Las Vegas airport from the Strip?
Very close — around ten to twenty minutes by road to most Strip hotels, and fifteen to twenty-five to downtown. It is one of the shortest airport-to-destination transfers of any major US city.
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