Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air sees seat miles rise, load factor drop

Allegiant Travel Co.'s flying outpaced its ability to fill seats in October.

During the month, the Las Vegas-based company's Allegiant Air unit saw the number of seat miles rise 17.5 percent, including charter and regularly scheduled service. The 510,000 passengers marked an 11.8 percent increase and the number of miles each seat flew occupied by a paying passenger went up 15.4 percent. As a result, the occupancy rate, known as the load factor, dropped 1.5 percentage points to 85.5 percent.

Allegiant's flight count rose 4 percent to 3,916 and the airline has started longer routes to places like Hawaii. Allegiant also has more MD-80 series aircraft with seating that has been expanded from 150 to 166 and had more flights with its even larger Boeing 757s.

During the fourth quarter, the airline projects scheduled and charter departures will rise 3 percent to
7 percent, with available seat miles going up 17 percent to 21 percent. In the first quarter of 2013, however, the airline forecasts that departures will drop 4 percent to 8 percent, yet seat miles still rise 12 percent to 16 percent.

The total revenue from each seat mile is expect to decline about 5 percent in October.Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at
toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.