Allegiant Air: The airline that doesn’t fly on Tuesdays

Airlines have faced a lot of hurdles and challenges, especially due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Allegiant Air is one of those airline companies striving to survive the market and emerging relatively successful. The airline has a very optimistic spirit which drives her decisions to attain tangible growth in 2021.

It will continue to do so on its merits and strategy. However, amid the crisis, the airline has altered its schedules and, so far in 2021, the carrier has not flown a single flight on a Tuesday.

Maurice Gallagher, CEO of Allegiant Air, stated the following on the earnings call:

“Our approach focusing on peak days or when our leisure customers want to travel has us only flying our aircraft an average of six to seven hours per day with that pattern. Today, the industry appears to be matching our approach, given leisure traffic is all that’s moving, namely they have stopped flying on the Tuesdays of the week and hence their 35% reduction or more compared to the same period in 2019. There is a good reason for them not to fly on Tuesday, namely minimal business traffic, the industry is rationalizing their offerings to customers available, the leisure customer, and the leisure customer for the most part does not move on Tuesday or Wednesday. This is an advantage Allegiant, in my opinion.”

Allegiant has been able to stand its ground from flying a large portfolio of routes. These flights, however, are seasonal and depend on the availability of leisure travellers to embark on journeys. It may seem weird to shut down an entire airline for a whole day, but it makes financial sense considering the extra cost of fuel added maintenance cost for ground staff landing fees and other expenses. 

Unlike Allegiant, whose major customers are leisure and tourists travellers, other airlines rely on business/executive travellers to keep their aircraft full on Tuesdays.

For example, February 2nd, on the same Tuesday last year, 1.7 million passengers stepped on board an aircraft and, on the same day in 2019, 1.6 million travellers took a flight. Just the day before, on Monday, nearly 2.1 million people took a flight in the US. That’s about one million passengers difference which is huge.