Allegiant looking to offer year-round flights

STAFF REPORT

VIENNA — Allegiant Air, the Las Vegas-based company that offers flights twice a week between the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and Sanford, Fla., is hoping to offer flights here year-round starting this fall and possibly add another Florida destination.

Steve Bowser, director of aviation at the airport, gave that news to members of the Western Reserve Port Authority at their meeting Wednesday. The port authority runs the airport.

Allegiant was one of the most profitable airline and travel companies in the world in 2008 and was the only U.S. airline to show a profit in every one of the four quarters of the year, Bowser said.

“We hitched our wagon to a rising star,” Bowser said of Allegiant offering flights here starting in May 2006.

During each of the first three years of the service, Allegiant discontinued flights 10 weeks during the fall — a slow time for travel to Florida — and resumed them in November.

This year, however, business may be strong enough to keep flights running during the fall, Bowser said.

The airline announced earlier it would increase its offerings to four flights per week during the Easter holiday April 2 through 17 this year.

Now it is also considering offering flights to a second Florida destination, Bowser said, though he was not able to say what destination.

It’s also likely Allegiant will increase to three flights per week in June and July, Bowser said.

The reason flights are being expanded is that most of the seats on Allegiant’s flights here are full. The local flights are full at a higher percentage than Allegiant’s average, Bowser said.

He has learned that Allegiant is drawing customers to the local airport from as far away as Newark, Ohio, and southwest New York, Bowser said.

In other business, the port authority board approved a resolution to allow the economic development subcommittee of the port authority to send out a request for proposal to six search companies that want to bid to find an economic development director for the port authority.

After a search company is hired, it will present candidates from a national search to the port authority subcommittee, which will recommend a candidate to the full port authority, said John Masternick, port authority chairman.

The economic development director will utilize the port authority’s powers to issue bonds to help companies in the Mahoning Valley expand, officials have said.

Mahoning and Trumbull County government bodies have pledged $375,000 per year for three years to fund the effort.