Allegiant Air keeps wheels up with fees
To mark its 15th birthday, Allegiant Air dished up thousands of scoops of free ice cream — some of which contained “golden tickets” that could be exchanged for free vacations to any Allegiant destination.
The nearly monthlong celebration, which wrapped up on Friday, also featured daily Facebook giveaways — with prizes ranging from Allegiant beach towels to free flights.
Allegiant passengers who missed the freebie-fueled birthday party probably are out of luck, at least for a while, because free isn’t part of the airline’s daily lexicon. To the bean counters at Allegiant’s Las Vegas headquarters, it’s a four-letter word — in
See
Page
every sense of the term.
And, for that, they make no apologies.
“There is no hiding that Allegiant loves their fees,” the travel website AirlineReporter.com noted in a review of the carrier. “If you are just flying with a carry-on, don’t care about where you sit and don’t eat anything, you can get to your destination for dirt cheap.”
Since kicking off scheduled air service with a flight from Fresno, Calif., to Las Vegas in 1999, Allegiant has racked up sizable profits — and a legion of loyal customers — by offering rock-bottom fares on flights from small and midsize U.S. cities, including Columbus, to “sunny vacation destinations.”
On Thursday, the carrier began seasonal nonstop service from Columbus’ Rickenbacker Airport to Myrtle Beach, S.C. The other options for Allegiant passengers departing from Columbus: Orlando Sanford International Airport and St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, both in Florida.
To make money — as it has for 45 consecutive quarters, a feat virtually unheard-of in the airline industry — Allegiant keeps operating costs to a minimum.
It pays cash for aging airplanes and fills them with seats that don’t recline. It eschews third-party booking sites such as Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity. It maintains no-frills terminal facilities. At Rickenbacker, for example, the carrier’s ticket counter is marked by plastic banners — not the illuminated, highly stylized signs that typically beckon air travelers.
As much as Allegiant focuses on expense management, it pays just as much attention — if not more — to revenue generation.
“Passengers face fees for almost every service and amenity imaginable,” the Associated Press noted in a 2013 profile of the airline. “At Allegiant, fees for checked baggage and changing an itinerary — which are common on many airlines — are just the beginning.”
Prefer to book a trip by phone? Add $14.99 to the ticket cost — per passenger, per flight. Want a printed boarding pass at the airport? Be prepared to cough up $5 per pass. Looking to stow that carry-on in an overhead bin? That’ll cost you $10 to $75 per flight, depending on the route and size of the bag.
What’s more, all Allegiant tickets include a $4 “debit-card discount,” which disappears if you pay with a credit card. (Translation: If you book your flight with a credit card, the stated price will increase by $4 per flight. The minimum fee for a round-trip ticket, therefore, would be $8 per passenger.)
Allegiant maintains that its fee structure provides a competitive advantage in an increasingly cutthroat industry. Its reasoning hinges on the notion that no two passengers are identical: Some pack as if they’re preparing to scale Mount Everest; others need only a toothbrush and a change of underwear. Some melt down if they don’t get a seat on the aisle; others are happy just to be on the plane.
The airline says its “low-cost, high-efficiency” approach allows passengers to pay only for amenities they want.
Allegiant, nevertheless, isn’t for everyone — as Columbus resident Michelle Johnson will attest.
The 31-year-old single parent recently called WBNS-TV to complain about a scheduled trip to Florida that had gone awry.
“My daughter and I were going to Clearwater to visit my sister,” she said.
Soon after buying round-trip tickets, however, Johnson realized she would have to change her plans.
Johnson said she knew the tickets were considered “nonrefundable.” She also was aware, though, that if she canceled her flight at least seven days before departure, the original airfare would be credited to future travel on Allegiant — minus a $75-per-ticket change fee.
“We tried to get ahold of them many times” to change the flight, Johnson said. “We were on hold for, like, hours and hours and hours.”
By the time she was able to connect with an airline representative, she was within seven days of her scheduled departure. Pursuant to Allegiant policy, she got no refund and no travel credit for that leg of the trip. The airline did give her a credit for her scheduled return, since the seven-day cancellation deadline for that flight hadn’t passed.
Johnson estimates that her “low-cost” trip to Florida, rescheduled for this summer, will end up costing her about $900 in airfare.
Joan Coughlin, a spokeswoman for the Better Business Bureau of Central Ohio, said her organization receives one Allegiant-related complaint a day, on average. But, she added, “anytime you have a company this size, you’re going to get a larger volume of complaints.”
Allegiant, in fact, enjoys an “A-plus” rating from the BBB.
Given that the airline serves more than 7 million passengers a year, it’s bound to have some unhappy customers, Coughlin said, adding that many of the complaints the BBB receives come from consumers who haven’t taken time to read the fine print — or even the not-sofine print.
“They’re very open with their policies and the fees that they do charge, so, if you know in advance, you won’t be surprised,” she said.
Johnson could have avoided the headaches she experienced if she’d taken advantage of the carrier’s Trip Flex protection, which provides for “unlimited reservation changes … at no charge.”
Allegiant calls it the “ultimate peace of mind.”
Not surprisingly, that peace of mind comes with a fee: $8 to $20 — per passenger, per flight, depending on the trip.