Allegiant Air to stop flights on two new routes from February 23

Allegiant Air recently said that it is facing losses on sale of plane tickets to the two new markets where it started flights in November 2013. The low-cost carrier said that it will be ending its flights services to Kansas’ Manhattan Regional Airport and Virginia’s Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport.

With the stopping of flights on these two new routes, Allegiant Air is now being seen as a carrier that is not ready to sustain in ‘underperforming’ markets even for few months. The airline’s reputation is now at stake for withdrawing from loss-making markets rather too quickly.

This is not the first instance that Allegiant Air is withdrawing its service from loss-making routes quickly. In 2007, the airline stopped its flights to Columbia only within two months after it launched its operations here. The airline again resumed operations briefly here in 2009.

Allegiant Air also ended its operations to Worcester and Lafayette after starting flights on these routes within nine months and four months respectively. The airline also started flights to Kinston, but stopped flying just after one year of its launch. The airline though had load factors of 90 percent at Kinston, but while stopping the service here it informed the airport officials that the ancillary revenue it was earning from the customers was just not enough to sustain the service.

The officials at Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport said that they would like to look for other airlines to begin flights from here to high demand markets in Southern and Central Florida. So far, the airport is not served by any other carrier with nonstop flights to Florida.