Southwest Airlines Objects To Bali Hai Golf Site For Oakland Raiders Las Vegas NFL Stadium

Turns out the same planners who’s idea of putting the Oakland Raiders Las Vegas NFL Stadium on the “Tropicana Site” next to McCarran International Airport, only to be rebuffed in a sternly worded letter by Bob Montgomery, Southwest Airlines Vice President Of Airport Affairs, came back with another site, The Bali Hai Golf Club, which is even closer to the airport than the one the airline rejected on June 30th 2016.

Those who think the Bali Hai Golf Club Site is a slam dunk for the proposed NFL Stadium, need to reject that notion.

Get this: even though Las Vegas Sands Government Affairs Vice President Andy Abboud said to Fox 5 Las Vegas that Sands Corporation is working with McCarran Airport to avoid any issues with traffic with respect to Bali Hai, no one bothered to call the key representative of the largest employer at the airport, Southwest Airlines, just to get its opinion.

I did.

I just finished a 30 minute on-the-record phone conversation with Southwest’s Mr. Montgomery, who said to me that while the Bali Hai Golf Club Site may be better in some way, “if its close to the runway, then our answer (to having a stadium there) is no. And while no one has shown me a site plan or anything, I see little difference between the Bali Hai Site and the Tropicana Site.”

Mr. Montgomery explained to me that the stadium comes with what he calls “bells and whistles” that make it an overall distraction for pilots if the football facility is close to the airport. “The stadium would take away from what the pilot is to be focused on, and that’s operating the plane,” Montgomery said.

To be sure, Southwest does not object to the idea of NFL football in Las Vegas, because (done right) it means more visitors for the airport, and that helps Southwest’s revenue stream since it brings over 12 million passengers to Sin City annually. But, and as Mr. Montgomery repeatedly explained, the airline’s foremost concern is for the safety of the air traveler.

Given his statements and the importance of Southwest Airlines to Las Vegas’ tourism bottom line, one would think someone connected with that organization would have been contacted by and wined and dined by the Las Vegas Sands and Oakland Raiders representatives, but according to Mr. Montgomery, not only was such not the case, his representatives at McCarran Airport went to the meetings of a committee formed by Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, and called “The Southern Nevada Tourism and Infrastructure Committee” or SNTIC, on their own accord.

They weren’t contacted by Las Vegas Sands and Oakland Raiders representatives at any time, as of this writing.

Brief Background: The Idea Of The Oakland Raiders In Las Vegas

For those of you new to this story, here’s a background brief.

In January of this year, Oakland Raiders Owner Mark Davis took tours of various possible sites for an NFL stadium in Las Vegas, thus allowing Davis to get his long-sought-after new stadium and leave Oakland in the process. Las Vegas was Mr. Davis option should his quest to move to Carson, California and join the San Diego Chargers fail. Well, it did.

Davis and his friend, Las Vegas Sands CEO and famed political investor Sheldon Adelson, established a partnership including Majestic Realty, and focused on a 42-acre tract of land controlled by the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV). Seeking $750 million in a hotel tax revenue subsidy, the Las Vegas Sands – Oakland Raiders – Majestic group, joined by soccer star David Beckham, made a presentation to the SNTIC on April 28th of this year.

The SNTIC, while advisory in nature, does have a powerful cast: both Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak and Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman sit on the SNTIC, and join a group of Vegas-based casino executives representing some of the most influential organization in the World. That said, it has taken upon itself the task of trying to evaluate a proposal for, and at the same time, help shape the plan for, an NFL stadium within an impossibly tight time frame of six months.

Because of that, mistakes have been made, including the one that eventually caused the UNLV Site, or what we call the Tropicana Site, to be all but taken off the table, and that is the basic failure to involve key stakeholders in the planning process. People like the executives of Southwest Airlines. People like the real estate community of Las Vegas.

The accidental and piecemeal way ‘potential new stadium sites’ are presented, and leading to the list of land areas to date, produces new negative news associated with each new stadium location idea.

The Bali Hai Golf Course, owned by locally loved Las Vegas gambler Bill Walters, is the latest casualty in this flawed process.

Now, while the ‘life’ of the SNTIC has been extended to late September, it’s clear that they’re running out of time to create a plan that has the buy-in of key stakeholders, which must be done if such a proposal has a snowball’s chance with the Nevada Legislature to even get a slice of the $750 million public subsidy Mark Davis says he wants.

At this point it’s not clear if, indeed, Governor Sandoval will hold a special session of the Nevada Legislature to vote on a stadium plan, because not even the SNTIC knows what that plan will look like. And that leads right back to my talk with Mr. Montgomery today.

It’s About Southwest’s Bottom Line As Much As McCarran International Airport Safety

I asked Mr. Montgomery how Southwest would adjust to a Las Vegas Airport with an NFL stadium right next to it at Bali Hai Golf Course, should the land proposal be slammed through as, first, an SNTIC recommendation, then Governor Sandoval’s approval, and then a vote of go-ahead by the Nevada Legislature? “Well, pilots would curtail use of the runways next to the stadium, or just not use them at all” he said. Montgomery says such an occurrence would result in what he calls a “loss of capacity” – in other words, fewer flights means less air traffic, and then less money for Southwest Airlines, and then, if you think about it, McCarran Airport itself.

From a perspective of pure system dynamics fact, lowering the number of daily flights to Las Vegas means a reduction in landing fees collected by McCarran Airport – which means lower airport revenues. With that, Mr. Montgomery is quite clear he understands who owns what: “We speak as a business that operates out of the airport; Clark County operates the airport. I have not seen a site plan or idea of where the stadium would be – nothing. But I do know this kind of land use within sight of a runway is not the best solution.”

Stay tuned.