Allegiant posts Q2 profit, expresses optimism for the rest of 2021

Allegiant Travel Company, the parent of ultra-low-cost carrier Allegiant Air, posted a healthy profit in the second three months of the year as the company has returned to business levels last seen before the global health crisis. “The second quarter marked the return of leisure demand to pre-pandemic levels,” chief executive Maury Gallagher tells analysts on the company’s quarterly earnings results call on 28 July. “These results suggest we are close if not back to ‘normal’, where we were in the early days of 2020. We continue to lead the industry out of this covid black hole,” he adds. The Las Vegas-based airline reports it earned $95m in Q2 2020, compared to a $93m loss for the same quarter in 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to make itself felt in the industry and around the world. In Q1 2021, the company had reported a profit of $6.9m. Revenue for the three months that ended on 30 June was $472m, up from $133m in the same quarter in 2020 and just slightly below the $492m it reported in Q2 2019.<br/>