Allegiant Air to expand flight offerings

The port authority has approved a resolution relating to bond financing for V&M Star Steel of Youngstown.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

VIENNA — Allegiant Air is expanding its flight offerings beginning April 22 with two flights per week to and from Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The airline announced the additional flights at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport on Wednesday, saying the flights will cost $49.99 each way to start and rise to around $70 each way after March 17.

Flights can be booked at www.allegiantair.com or by calling (702) 505-8888. Tickets also are available at the local airport near the times when flights are arriving and departing.

Allegiant spokesman John Fenyes said Las Vegas-based Allegiant’s flights will leave the local airport at 2:05 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays through the fall. The return flights leave Myrtle Beach at 2:45 p.m. and arrive in Vienna Township at 4:25 p.m.

The company is expanding offerings because of the good response from local customers to the flights it has offered between Vienna and the Sanford International Airport since May 2006, Fenyes said.

As with Allegiant’s other flights, all are nonstop on 150-seat MD-80-series jet aircraft. Additional fees, such as a passenger- facility charge and convenience fee of $14 per ticket purchased online or over the phone, increase the total cost.

Scott Lynn, chairman of the Western Reserve Port Authority, which runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, said he remains hopeful that Allegiant will continue to expand its offerings of flights here to leisure destinations.

The destination for flights from the local airport to the Orlando area is changing next Thursday, with flights arriving at Orlando International Airport instead of Sanford International Airport. Fenyes said the reason Allegiant switched to Orlando is because it is about 40 minutes closer to Disney World and provides better transportation services.

While attending Allegiant’s annual conference recently, Lynn learned that the local airport provides Allegiant with the 12th-lowest “turnaround costs” of the 60 markets it serves and is among the top five in “load factor.”

Turnaround costs are things such as fuel, ticketing agents and baggage handling, Lynn said. Load factor is a measurement of how full the flights are.

These measurements suggest that “we’re in no danger of losing our air service” from Allegiant, Lynn said.

In other business, the port authority approved a resolution stating the port authority’s intent to help V&M Star Steel of Youngstown with tax-exempt bond financing for a portion of its $650 million steel-tube manufacturing expansion.

The resolution makes it possible for V&M to go back 60 days from Wednesday to recapture a part of the costs it has incurred in connection with the project, said Rose Ann DeLeon, the port authority’s executive director and newly hired economic-development expert.

The resolution allows V&M to apply some of its upfront costs to whatever financing the port authority might later provide to the company, DeLeon said.

DeLeon, who was hired Nov. 18 with money pooled from Mahoning and Trumbull county commissioners and the cities of Youngstown, Warren and Niles and the Western Reserve Building Trades Council, reported that she is continuing to meet with organizations and officials to explain ways she can assist with business development.

“What I’m trying to do is educate the public on what the tools are,” she said, such as the bond financing V&M Star is considering.

She also is working with economic- development groups across the state to encourage Congress and the Ohio Legislature to set aside money to create a bond fund that can be used to encourage commercial and industrial expansions through low-cost financing.

runyan@vindy.com