Taylor Swift is set to travel from Tokyo to Las Vegas this weekend. It is likely that she will use a private jet to go from Japan’s capital — where she is set to perform on Saturday night — to Sin City, where her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and the Kansas City Chiefs will be playing against the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday afternoon. The pop superstar won’t be the only one using that mode of transportation to get to the event, which attracts people of great importance, fame, and wealth. The question is, where will all those planes park? It is hoped that Swift or whoever is in charge of her arrangements has already thought about this, as all parking spots for private jets in Vegas are fully booked this weekend. (A representative for Swift did not immediately respond to The Times regarding the singer’s travel plans.) The Federal Aviation Administration stated that it anticipates 3,500 more takeoffs and landings than usual at local airports— including Harry Reid International, Henderson Executive, North Las Vegas, and Boulder City— this weekend, with around 500 aircraft being parked at those locations. The maths seems to highlight a supply-and-demand issue.“This is the first Super Bowl in Las Vegas,” said Joe Rajchel, a spokesperson for the Clark County Department of Aviation. “You would expect demand to be high and it has been a high-demand weekend. People want to be here — whether or not they’re going to the game, I think people just want to be in the city and be around the activity.” The FAA has put a slot reservation system in place for parking and airspace at those airports from Feb. 6-13 to manage the expected high volume of air traffic. Reservations for parking planes at the airports are handled by fixed-base operators. Clark County serves as the fixed-base operator for the Henderson and North Las Vegas airports, and Rajchel said the slots at those locations will be full all weekend. Two private companies, Signature Aviation and Atlantic Aviation, oversee operations for Harry Reid International. A statement on Signature’s website mentions that parking at that airport has “reached capacity for the duration of the Super Bowl event” and that there’s “an extensive waiting list for any cancellations.” A representative for Atlantic mentioned that its slots have been full “probably for a few weeks now,” and that the size of the planes was a factor. “If it’s much smaller planes we can fit more,” the representative said, “but for this event we have much larger planes so we can fit less in that aspect.” The two fixed-base operators that serve Boulder City Airport have reached their slot limit long ago. BFE manager Randy Saenz mentioned that his company could actually take in more planes. “People are begging and asking me to give them a slot,” he said on Friday. But, he said, “I can’t. It’s not in my capability. Boulder City was given a small number of slots.” Saenz expects the FAA to “tweak” its regulations the next time the Super Bowl is in town. He added that he still has space for certain small planes or helicopters that don’t fall under the FAA’s restrictions, but most of the people looking to park there this weekend don’t have aircraft that fall into that category. His advice to those folks?“Call a year earlier,” Saenz said.
