Two aircraft will be delivered within the next 2 months followed by 1 in November 2010, one in January 2011, and the last 2 in the 4th quarter of 20111.
Allegiant expects to spend between $75 to 90 million through 2012 acquiring and preparing this fleet for service. While Allegiant is able to acquire and prepare the aircraft for cash, it believes it will finance some portion of the purchase.
Amazing this will put their fleet over 50 aircraft. I remember when they had one DC-9-21 and only flew Fresno-Vegas once a day and flew charters on the side. That was just 11 years ago.
I remember they started doing Laughlin flights from here with their MD-87. (948MA it was). N948MA.
Seeing this thing, I never would’ve thought this airline would become one of the more sucessful airlines in the states in a few years, FURTHERMORE being one that operates sched service out of airports like mine (KSPI) and other small markets like it does.
Allegiant also flew for Air Laughlin at IFP around 2000/2001 until a disagreement erupted over fuel surcharges.
I just hope that the AAY management group steps up and pays the 757 drivers a livable wage. Heard that they are considering M80 wages for the 757. Really?
I met the original owner Mitch Allee in 1995 while working on a DC-9 project. Our group laughed when he told us his intentions of starting Allegiant which he was calling Westjet at the time:D
Maurice Gallagher: Hawaii is an interesting market for us. Unfortunately, … we have to have a different airplane to do it. We couldn’t do Hawaii with the existing fleet. So, we’d have to add something to our fleet. But, all in good time. I wouldn’t rule Hawaii out, but we have no instant plan to do it.
I think Allegiant will be able to make money on its Hawaiian services provided it sticks to its plan of flying from smaller and secondary airports.
Assuming these are 200 series aircraft then the range is about 3900 miles. That means they could fly nonstop to Hawaii from many places west of the Mississippi with no problems. And with their “charge for everything but the kitchen sink (which they will soon be charging for)” attitude, they will makes lots of money on inflight meals, checked baggage, and drinks.
I have some personal experience with the management team at AAY, so I will reserve judgment on how well I think this decision is or isn’t.
I will say, however, that Mitch’s team, when I worked with and helped to support the booking system they use, were real jerks to me. I actually had to go over their heads, call my company’s CEO (which Mitch was part owner of my employer at that time) to bring him in to resolve our differences. Mitch was nice about it; while his team really wasn’t. Either way, both Mitch and my then-CEO spent both companies into the ground, where Mitch’s barely survived, and mine went Ch. 11 followed by Ch. 7.
Hopefully Maurice (who relocated AAY from Fresno to Vegas; in fact, the same buildings where my company was at) makes AAY better than what Mitch did. I like the idea of flying scheduled flights to small markets. One of the only things I didn’t like were the DC9s, MD80s, and the Fokkers they were flying. Hopefully this changes them around, and more importantly, changes around my impression of AAY. Mitch left a really bad taste in my mouth of them.
HONOLULU (AP) -Continental Airlines and Allegiant Travel Company are announcing new flights to Hawaii.
Continental already flies to the islands from the mainland. It said on Friday it would add a daily redeye flight from Maui to Los Angeles on a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, with a return late afternoon flight from Los Angeles.
It also will begin a four-times-a-week afternoon flight from Maui to Orange County, Calif. on a 737-700 plane. The return flight will leave in the late afternoon.
Allegiant announced it will soon purchase two Boeing 757s to launch service to Hawaii later this year. It will buy four more in late 2010 and next year.
The airline now serves major and small cities in California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona, as well as Las Vegas.
Looks like COA is filling in the void left by Aloha when it flew the SNA/Hawaii route.
Maybe they had a problem with the way you answered this question:
While acting as pilot in command of a commercial flight, have you ever damaged, crashed, wrecked, rolled or landed a plane covered in blood.
] Never
] Once
] 2-4 times X] More than five times
I’m pretty sure they flew just one Fokker, in addition to the DC9s. I saw at least 1 every day in AAY colours fly out of KLAS, and it was mainly on the KLAS-KFAT route, when AAY was based in Fresno.
Wow Freudian slip on my part, I said F70, meant F28 and forgot there was an F70. I knew the name, but was thinking the shorter F-28. I forgot there was an aircraft in between the 28 and 100.
AAY never had Fokkers. That was the DC-9-21 that was doing FAT-LAS everyday and parked at the America West gates. We used to charter the 9 from AAY for extra lift to the Grand Canyon for Eagle Canyon and Scenic Airlines. The aircraft would arrive around 9am and sat till 6pm before returning to FAT.
Off topic but AAY related: Spring of 2000 I chartered the AAY DC-9-21 and a Renown Aviation L-188 Electra running a LAS-GCN-TUS-LAS for Caterpillar Heavy Equipment. We arrived at GCN and all was fine till the OAT spiked to 90 and GCN elevation is 6500 feet. I had 140 pax total and 70 on each aircraft. As we are loading up the AAY crew informs me all they can carry is 40 pax and no bags to get to TUS only a 40 min flight. Guessing they had some extra fuel on-board. Talked to the Electra crew and they could carry 100 pax and all the bags to TUS. So my girlfriend and I moved the 30 pax and 60 bags from the DC-9 and loaded them on the 1959 Electra. We chewed up most of GCN’s 9000 foot runway to get the L-188 airborne and climbed out at about 700 fpm.
This also happened to be the last pure passenger flight of a Lockheed Electra in the United States. Renown shut down the following week after a crash in Europe ending an era for the Electra.
