Allegiant Air growing Phoenix/Mesa base; demand up 55% with five new routes starting

US low-cost carrier Allegiant Air began operations from Phoenix/Mesa Gateway Airport on 25 October 2007 with the launch of five low-frequency routes using its 150-seat MD80s. The airport is located in the city of Mesa, Arizona and around 30 kilometres from Phoenix. Phoenix’s main airport (Sky Harbor) handled just under 40 million passengers in 2008 and ranked ninth in the US.

By the end of 2007 the airline had expanded its network to 13 routes. In the first half of 2008 Allegiant dropped four of these routes (those to Fort Wayne, Green Bay, Sacramento/Stockton and Santa Maria) but added six new routes (to Bismarck, Eugene, Great Falls, Medford, Redmond and Springfield) in October 2008. Examination of BTS data for 2008 reveals that the load factors on the dropped routes, though impressive by normal industry standards, fell below the apparent benchmark for Allegiant of around 90%. Sacramento/Stockton achieved 88.6%, Green Bay 86.4%, Fort Wayne 85.5% and Santa Maria (in California) just 76.0%.

A new airport for the city, Phoenix-Mesa Gateway is a designated Military Reuse Zone. Right next door Gaylord Entertainment is developing the largest resort in Arizona including 1,500 rooms and a 300,000 sq.ft. convention center scheduled to open in 2012.

Source: US BTS

In 2008 the airline transported 357,000 passengers in and out of Phoenix/Mesa and the airport had become Allegiant’s fourth biggest base, or ‘focus city’ as the airline prefers to call them. The most popular routes were from Bellingham, Fargo and Sioux Falls. In the first six months of 2009 no new destinations were added but passenger departures reached 149,000 an increase of 55% on the corresponding period in 2008. So far this year Fargo, Cedar Rapids and Sioux Falls have been the busiest routes, all managing load factors of just under 95%.

Source: US BTS

The launch of the six new routes last October can clearly be seen. Load factors rapidly reached typical Allegiant levels on four of the routes but Medford and Redmond have taken a little longer to reach maturity.

Seven flights on Monday, just two on Tuesday

Analysis of the airline’s current schedule reveals that nearly all of the routes are served with just two weekly frequencies, apart from Bellingham, Cedar Rapids and Fargo which are each served with three weekly flights.

The resulting 33 departures are not spread evenly across the week. There are seven departures on Monday, and six on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. On Wednesday and Saturday there are just three departures and only two (to Cedar Rapids and Fargo) on Tuesdays.

Five new routes starting in October/November

This week saw the launch of two new services to Grand Island (Nebraska) and Grand Rapids (Michigan) which will both be served twice-weekly on Wednesday and Saturday.

Next month, within the space of a week three more routes will be added bringing the total number of destinations served to 20. Grand Forks (North Dakota), Pasco (Washington) and Wichita (Kansas) will all be served with the traditional two weekly flights.

At present Allegiant is the only carrier offering scheduled services at Phoenix/Mesa though according to the airport there is potential demand for regular daily flights to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco.