Allegiant Air says it is going “again to its roots” in 2025 with new jets, new routes and extra to return this yr.
A part of that evolution means the potential finish of its foray into the resort enterprise.
This week, the corporate introduced it’s in search of buyers or patrons for its Las Vegas-style Sunseeker Resort close to Punta Gorda, Florida — a sprawling property on Charlotte Harbor the corporate as soon as noticed as a vacation spot for passengers it might funnel by its in depth route community into Punta Gorda Airport (PGD), a few half-hour north of Fort Myers.
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However early struggles for the resort since opening its doorways in late 2023 — and a re-focusing by Allegiant on its core airline enterprise — might see the airline’s resort enterprise find yourself a short-lived gamble.
“Underlying our execution is the deliberate efforts of being laser-focused on our core power: the airline,” Allegiant CEO Greg Anderson, who assumed his publish final summer season, mentioned this week on the corporate’s newest earnings name.
Main progress in 2025
Regardless of Allegiant’s plans to dump Sunseeker, the corporate is poised for main progress in 2025.
A whopping 44 new routes introduced in a November announcement — tied for the largest enlargement in its historical past — will launch within the coming months.
And which may be only the start.
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For years, a labor scarcity and plane supply delays at Boeing hindered Allegiant’s hopes to develop its route map — a community lengthy identified for flights that join underserved U.S. cities with standard leisure locations.
However after many months of slashing routes and ready on the jets it might must enter a real progress spurt, the corporate hit a significant tipping level late final yr.
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“A number of that is within the rearview,” Allegiant chief industrial officer Drew Wells declared at an business convention in November.
New 737 MAX deliveries key to progress
Over the ultimate few months of 2024, the provider took supply of the primary 4 of its long-awaited Boeing MAX 8-200 plane — the 190-seat jet it sees as a linchpin of its future plans.
Allegiant is scheduled to take supply of as much as 13 extra MAX jets over the course of 2025, a spokesperson advised TPG.
With staffing and different infrastructure already in place to help a bigger airline, Wells mentioned, the addition of latest plane was akin to flipping a lightweight swap — and the proof is within the numbers.
In October, Allegiant flew lower than it did the prior yr, based on aviation analytics firim Cirium. The identical was true for November.
However in December, its complete variety of seats flown skyrocketed, 14% over 2023 ranges.
December wasn’t an anomaly. Over the primary six months of 2025, the airline’s complete seats flown is scheduled to be up 16% over this time final yr, per Cirium.
What’s extra, jets that includes the provider’s extra-legroom “Allegiant Further” seats fly on 5 instances as many departures through the first quarter of 2025 versus the primary three months of final yr, the corporate shared this week.
Which means the provider will probably be higher positioned to seize the robust curiosity vacationers have in premium seats with additional area — a development that is led a slew of low-cost airways to announce new higher-end seating and product choices in latest months.
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Further routes anticipated
After which there’s the matter of the place Allegiant flies: Count on the corporate to announce extra new routes in 2025, Wells advised analysts this week.
“The planning group is ecstatic to have some flexibility and freedom,” he mentioned whereas touting the handfuls of latest flights the provider will launch over the subsequent few months.
That features the half dozen cities that can quickly be linked by Allegiant to Gulf Shores Worldwide Airport (GUF) on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, the place it’s going to quickly turn out to be the one airline at that coastal airport.
“We have heard from our clients that they journey to the Alabama coast for an annual trip, however presently drive as a lot as 15 hours every manner,” Wells mentioned this week. “This seems loads like prior Allegiant success tales like Punta Gorda, or Destin, Florida.”
Just like Gulf Shores, Punta Gorda had little significant industrial airline service when Allegiant started flying there in 2009. The airline leveraged its place there for a torrid enlargement, at present flying to about 50 locations from the secondary airport within the Fort Myers metro space.
Just one different airline, Solar Nation Airways, flies from the airport, providing seasonal service to its Minneapolis hub in a route it added solely as a part of an obvious turf battle with Allegiant.
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Regardless, Punta Gorda is the place Allegiant will once more have a big presence in 2025, with dozens of nonstop routes however, it hopes, no resort enterprise within the close to future.
The corporate hopes to dump the Sunseeker property by summer season, executives mentioned Tuesday — and have fielded curiosity each from potential patrons and firms behind the most important resort loyalty applications.
Suffice it to say, 2025 will probably be a yr of main evolution for the airline.
“I do not view it a lot as change, as coming again to our roots,” Wells mentioned in November whereas talking on the Skift Aviation Discussion board in Dallas. “Form of returning that focus to what made us nice is the place we wish to go.”
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