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Belligham airport booms, scooping Abbotsford traffic

While other U.S. airlines have struggled over the past decade from
the ups and downs of the economy and the price of jet fuel, Allegiant
Air – a popular choice for B.C. residents headed to sun spots – has been
profitable for 10 straight years.

It focuses on a niche ignored by other airlines: It only flies from small cities to sunny vacation spots.

Allegiant
entices people who otherwise wouldn't fly with low fares and non-stop
flights. Then it aggressively pitches them hotels, rental cars, show
tickets and other entertainment, earning millions in commissions.
Passengers face fees for almost every service and amenity imaginable. At
Allegiant, fees for checked baggage and changing an itinerary – which
are common on many airlines – are just the beginning.

The Las
Vegas-based airline charges extra to book flights online, or to use a
credit card. Selecting a seat in advance costs $5 to $75 US each way,
depending on the length of a flight. Even a bottle of water costs $2.
Flying Allegiant isn't glamorous. While other airlines tout new aircraft
with Wi-Fi and TVs in every seat, Allegiant buys old planes to avoid
hefty aircraft loans. And to pack in as many passengers as possible, its
seats don't recline. But for small U.S. towns with limited flight
options, these inconveniences are worth it for a few days of sunshine.

"They
could be the worst airline in the world and we'd fly them because we
want to go to Vegas," says Tom Mayo of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who recently
flew there with his family.

Allegiant offers non-stop service from
Bellingham to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Oakland/San Francisco and
Honolulu and Maui in Hawaii.

Only 17 of Allegiant's 203 routes are flown non-stop by another airline.

"Typically,
the best way to make money is not to compete with somebody," says
Andrew C. Levy, president of Allegiant Travel Co., who sits in a cubicle
next to the rest of his staff.

Rather than battle major carriers
for customers on routes between major cities, Allegiant uses its
marketing muscles to convince people in small towns to fly away for a
vacation.

"Allegiant tends to bring people into the airport who
wouldn't normally fly," says Tim Bradshaw, director of the Eastern Iowa
Airport in Cedar Rapids.

Last year, seven million passengers took a
flight on Allegiant. The airline earned a whopping $11.22 each way from
those passengers. On average, the airline industry earned 37 cents each
way, per passenger, according to Airlines for America, the industry's
lobbying group. Southwest Airlines, one of the industry's most
profitable carriers, made $3.85 per passenger last year.

Allegiant
is ruthless about keeping its costs down. Its employees are some of the
lowest paid in the industry, in some cases making $20 an hour less than
colleagues at other airlines. It pays cash for airplanes nearly twice
as old as everyone else. It only sells directly to vacationers, refusing
to pay Expedia, Orbitz or other sites to list its flights.

And if you have a question, it will cost you: the airline doesn't have a toll-free number.

Like
some other budget airlines, Allegiant advertises extremely low base
fares and then tacks on numerous fees. A round-trip ticket with
Allegiant costs $195, on average. But passengers pay an additional $83
in fees – or 30 per cent of the total cost of flying.

To book a
trip by phone, Allegiant charges $50 for each round trip ticket. To book
online costs $20 for each round trip ticket. The only way to avoid the
fees is to purchase tickets at the airport, something fewer than three
per cent of its customers did last year.

But whether you book by
phone, Internet or in person, paying with a credit card costs an extra
$8. Placing a suitcase in an overhead bin is $10 to $25. Boarding passes
signify who has paid the fee. If passengers show up at the airport with
a large carry-on bag and haven't prepaid the fee, the airline penalizes
them an extra $25 to $50, depending on the route.

But what really
makes Allegiant different are the commissions it earns from selling
hotel rooms, rental cars and other extras including boat tours and
theme-park tickets. It even gets people to attend time share sales
presentations. Before a passenger can finalize a ticket purchase online,
they must click through page after page offering them these add-ons.

Last year, revenue from commissions totalled $36 million, or nearly $12 per round trip passenger.

Once on board, Allegiant passengers are again bombarded with sales pitches.

"They do a fantastic job packaging," says JetBlue CEO David Barger. "I think we can learn a lot from what Allegiant does."

Ben
Baldanza, CEO of Spirit Airlines – the only other U.S. carrier to
charge for overhead bin space or for booking over the Internet – also
respects Allegiant's ability to sell extras, such as a round of golf in
Myrtle Beach, S.C. Most airlines promote their new first-class seats or
individual TV screens. Allegiant – which only offers coach seats –
promotes its destinations: Las Vegas gamblers smiling after winning at
roulette, a hot-air balloon floating over the Arizona desert or a woman
in a bikini sipping a frozen drink on a Hawaiian beach.

Allegiant's passengers aren't sold on the airline but on the escape.

Frugal
decisions like that helped Allegiant post a net profit of $78 million
last year on revenue of $909 million. Its 8.6 per cent profit margin was
the highest of any U.S. airline, making it a darling of Wall Street.

Allegiant
has 64 planes and flies to 87 cities, but it's tiny compared with an
airline like United, which carried 20 times as many people last year,
often on much longer flights.

The airline got its start in 1998 as
a charter operation with one airplane. By February the following year,
it had started scheduled flights between Fresno, Calif. and Las Vegas.

Instead
of buying the newest, most expensive planes, the airline buys used,
inexpensive jets. Its planes are 23 years old, on average, compared with
the industry average of 14 years.

Each used MD-80 costs $3 million, compared with $40 million for a new Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 of similar size.

"When
you have such little investment in an aircraft, you only fly it when
it's going to be full of passengers," says Peter B. Barlow, an aircraft
finance lawyer at Smith, Gambrell & Russell.

On Tuesdays, when most of Allegiant's customers are stuck at work, the airline keeps nearly all its planes on the ground.

Flying
older planes has drawbacks, though. They burn more fuel, something
Allegiant combats by squeezing 166 passengers onto planes – 26 more than
American Airlines has on comparable jets. They also have more
mechanical problems, resulting in more delays.