T3 Opens At McCarran International Airport

Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport has opened its new Terminal 3, a 1.9 million-square-foot expansion that includes more gates, dining, and shopping options for the 41 million passengers who annually fly to the airport.

T3 is the first terminal to be constructed in the U.S. since 9/11. The area includes a dozen restaurants and stores, 14 gates, a ticket lobby, two TSA checkpoints, and a parking garage.

Dining options include Dewar's Clubhouse Bar & Grill, an American bar serving traditional bar food and its namesake Dewar's scotch, the aptly named La Tapenade Mediterranean Café, which offers a variety of dips and flatbreads, and Vegas Chophouse, a steakhouse serving filet mignon, crabcakes, grilled salmon, and sides.

Travelers can also grab a pint of locally brewed beer at the family-owned Village Pub, which also serves the requisite pub grub like beer-battered fish and chips.

Jet-setters on the go can also grab fast food from Carl's Jr., Pei Wei Asian Diner, Burger King, Starbucks, and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, which all have outposts in the new terminal, which is estimated to increase capacity at the nation's seventh-busiest airport to 53 million passengers.

In addition to the new dining and shopping options, T3 has other time-saving options including kiosks in the check-in area that allow passengers on participating air carriers to tag their own checked baggage, self-boarding gates, and free public wireless Internet access in the terminal that extends to aircraft parked at its gates.

And it wouldn't be Las Vegas without the slot machines. T3 has 300 slot machines along with four neon "Welcome to Las Vegas" signs that emulate Betty Willis' iconic sign on Las Vegas Boulevard.