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Allegiant Second Quarter Traffic Data Encouraging

An Allegiant A319 in Las Vegas (Photo: AirlineGeeks | William Derrickson)

In a press release issued July 9, Allegiant reported encouraging performance in its preliminary 2nd quarter and June passenger traffic report but signaled cautious optimism for the upcoming third quarter.

Allegiant reported carrying 867,207 scheduled service passengers in the month of June, down 45.6% from the previous year. For the 2nd quarter, the carrier flew 1.2 million passengers, 69.4% less than the 2nd quarter in 2019.

But Allegiant cautiously reported optimism as its’ June passenger bookings were much better than the previous month with signs for it to continue into the third quarter. The carrier reported gross bookings for the month of June averaged more than $4 million per day, bringing the average for the quarter to $2.5 million per day.

“We continued to see modest demand improvements throughout the month of June, building upon May’s demand increases,” stated Gregory Anderson, executive vice president, chief financial officer and principal accounting officer of Allegiant Travel Company. 

June’s bookings exceeded Allegiant’s expectations, enough to lower its daily cash burn to $900 thousand from the originally forecasted $1.75 million. But with an increase in the number of people diagnosed with the coronavirus, especially in southern U.S. states, Allegiant expects some softening of bookings going into the third quarter as cities and states consider a return to stay at home ordinances.

Allegiant reported operating 8,940 flights in June, down from 11,176 in the previous year, accounting for nearly 80% of its flights now being back online for the month. But for the quarter, departures were down nearly 50% with only 14,683 total flights flown.

Load factors also showed improvement in June, coming in at 57.3%, a 10% improvement from the previous month.

Allegiant’s capacity was down 17.5 percent for the month of June compared to the previous year but its peak day available seat miles increased 3.5 percent from the prior year. 

Allegiant reported that roughly six percent of all travelers going through TSA checkpoints were Allegiant passengers. And the airline expects to operate roughly 75 percent of its’ schedule in the third quarter but is prepared to make adjustments as dictated by demand trends.

“We recognize the situation is fluid, and that demand could be impacted by additional shutdowns and required quarantines in our markets. As a result, we remain focused on finding ways to eliminate costs and preserve cash. We continue to keep our finger on the pulse and will leverage the flexibility of our model to pull back capacity to match demand levels in the coming months,” Mr. Anderson said.

Rick Shideler

Author

  • Rick Shideler

    Rick is a retired airline maintenance professional with over 40 years experience in commercial, corporate and military aviation sectors. Rick holds an FAA Airframe & Powerplant (A&P) and a FCC General RadioTelephone Licenses. Rick is a veteran of the United States Air Force and has served in multiple leadership positions including Director of Maintenance for a large corporate aviation firm, airline Director of Engineering and has chaired multiple aviation maintenance safety and reliability industry committees. Rick took his first airplane ride at six months old and became an airline geek shortly thereafter.

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