I recently had a conversation with someone at an airline outside the US who was lamenting how airports in the US just keep raising costs to unsustainable levels, and there aren\u2019t enough checks to prevent it. The airlines have largely rolled over or even approved of the spending\u2026 but not all. Allegiant is apparently the hero we all need as it has now told LAX that it is shutting its crew base and scaling back flights since high fees make the operation unsustainable.<\/p>\n
It appears that Aero Crew News<\/a> may have broken the story \u2014 I can\u2019t find anything earlier \u2014 that the airline would shut its base. According to Ishrion Aviation<\/a>, flights to Billings, Des Moines, Kalispell, Laredo, Medford, Memphis, Pasco, Rapid City, and Rockford are all going away or already gone. It\u2019s also noted that Springfield (MO) and Tulsa are ending after summer. This isn\u2019t shown in Cirium data yet, but I did double check booking windows on Allegiant\u2019s website to confirm.<\/p>\n I asked Allegiant for comment on this move, and a spokesperson said this:<\/p>\n We will cease base operations at LAX Sept. 2. At Allegiant, we consider our bases to be long-term commitments. We understand that our team members make important decisions about where to live and raise their families, taking into account the locations of our bases. However, when airport costs surpass our average fare, it results in higher costs for our customers, and we\u2019ve found that it no longer provides the value they expect from Allegiant. As an ultra-low-cost airline, we focus on keeping our costs low as industry dynamics evolve, ensuring we remain a carrier that our team members and customers can trust long-term. \u00a0Paying approximately $50 per departing passenger in LAX-related station costs alone is no longer sustainable. These costs are set to rise further in the coming years with ongoing capital projects at LAX. We will continue to serve Los Angeles with all flights operating as turns from other bases, providing our customers with the exceptional service they have come to expect from Allegiant.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s right, Allegiant says it is costing the airline $50 per departing passenger in LAX-related costs alone. This is remarkably high, and it\u2019s completely unsustainable for almost any airline flying short-haul, let alone a low-cost operator.<\/p>\n According to the airport\u2019s proposed budget<\/a>, cost per enplanement should \u201conly\u201d be $32.52. I put that in quotes, because it is still quite high. It\u2019s just far short of what Allegiant says it is paying. Of course, having a base means that Allegiant needs to lease more space, so there are added costs that lead to the higher number. I don\u2019t think this is likely to be a lie.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that Allegiant is paying this while also receiving a pretty poor experience at the airport itself. After all, Allegiant is one of the airlines that has its check-in counter in Terminal 1.5. After checking in, travelers go through security and then have to take a bus all the way out to the midfield concourse in the Bradley Terminal. That may not matter for a long-haul flight where people don\u2019t mind getting there early. But on a short hop? That does not work out very well.<\/p>\n So now, Allegiant is standing up to the tyranny of it all and closing the base. This doesn\u2019t mean it is exiting the airport, but it will now operate flights from other bases. Here\u2019s how things stack up as of now:<\/p>\n Allegiant LAX Route map<\/a> generated by the\u00a0Great Circle Mapper<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 copyright \u00a9\u00a0Karl L. Swartz<\/a>.<\/sup><\/em> When you look at the map, you do see that shorter flights tend to go away compared to longer ones. Of course, when it touches another base like Bellingham that\u2019s not the case, but it\u2019s just a general trend. And this is really no surprise. Longer flights tend to generate more revenue, and that makes it easier to absorb the high passenger costs at LAX.<\/p>\n Other airlines that operate at LAX have had mixed reactions to the rising costs. The legacy airlines probably don\u2019t hate it. They generate more revenue than the low-cost operators, so rising costs just helps them push out low-cost competition. That\u2019s reflected in the numbers. Comparing July 2025 to July 2019, United seats are up 7.9 percent while Delta is basically flat. (American is down a lot, but that\u2019s because it dismantled its Pacific hub.) <\/p>\n But look at the lower cost operators and just see how much they\u2019ve cut seats in the LAX market during that period.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just a cut in seats. There is also a trend toward longer flights in general. Southwest\u2019s stage length is up 15 percent, Spirit is up 9 percent, and Allegiant was up 20 percent before making its cuts. (Alaska is way down, but that\u2019s because it has shed a lot of the legacy Virgin America long-hauls that lost money.)<\/p>\n You may have noticed I didn\u2019t include Frontier, and that\u2019s because Frontier has completely changed course. It used to be that Frontier was the airline that fought airport costs. It didn\u2019t fly much to LAX before the pandemic \u2014 just doing Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Denver in summer 2019 \u2014 but it was so fed up with high costs at the airport that it left in October 2021. It left Newark as well for similar reasons. But then, it caved.<\/p>\n After Frontier\u2019s performance tanked, it realized it had to start chasing revenue. So, it went back into those high-cost airports, because that\u2019s where the revenue is. From LAX it has grown significantly, and it\u2019s not even doing the usual sub-daily flying that it\u2019s known for. Here\u2019s the current summer plan:<\/p>\n It wants big airports with a lot of revenue where it thinks it can cover those airport costs. I know, you look at a place like Las Vegas and scratch your head, right? But Frontier has no base in LA, so it probably just needs to route airplanes from its nearest base, which happens to be Vegas. Most of these are big cities that skew further away.<\/p>\n What may be more notable is what has not survived. Sacramento and San Jose go away this spring. Those are the kinds of short-haul routes that just can\u2019t cover the costs of operating, especially at a low-fare carrier.<\/p>\n Spirit has done the same, abandoning the LAX west coast network to places like Oakland, Portland (OR), Reno, Salt Lake City, San Jose, and Seattle. And of course, we know that JetBlue has pulled out of all short-haul from LAX.<\/p>\n Perhaps the biggest tell is what Southwest has done. Every single market under 1,000 miles has shrunk compared to pre-pandemic. Vegas seats are down nearly 20 percent, Oakland is down more than 40 percent. Denver is the only one not down double digits at -7.6 percent.<\/p>\n Yes there are other factors including reduced demand, but think about it this way\u2026 for flights under 1,000 miles on Southwest, LAX seats are down 40 percent while Burbank\u2019s are down 23 percent, Ontario seats are down 9 percent, and Orange County is actually up a bit.<\/p>\n Allegiant has seen all of this and decided to make a clear statement that it is not going to sit around and lose money any longer. LAX may very well shrug. Allegiant isn\u2019t a major player at the airport, and there are plenty of others who won\u2019t put up a fight. But LAX\u2019s spending spree has changed the face of the airport and made lower fares and shorter-haul that much tougher to operate.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently had a conversation with someone at an airline outside the US who was lamenting how airports in the US just keep raising costs to unsustainable levels, and there aren\u2019t enough checks to prevent it. The airlines have largely rolled over or even approved of the spending\u2026 but not all. Allegiant is apparently the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":126108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12028],"tags":[43454,563,17845,10939,17846,1521,55183,33112,2065],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-126107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-airline","tag-allegiant","tag-base","tag-cranky","tag-fees","tag-flier","tag-high","tag-lax","tag-shuts","tag-stands"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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Yellow flies this summer, green flies year-round, red is exited<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n\n
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