Allegiant Travel Company, parent of Allegiant Air, rode high demand for leisure travel to a profitable Q4 2022, capping a year marked by significant operational challenges. Allegiant posted a $53m profit in the final quarter of last year, compared with $11m in the three months ending on 31 December 2021. The Las Vegas-based carrier generated $612m in revenue in Q4 2022, up 23% from $497m in the same three months in 2021. “We have great momentum heading into 2023,” John Redmond, Allegiant’s CE, said during the company’s quarterly earnings call on 1 February. “Underpinning the strong financial performance is a robust demand environment that shows no signs of slowing.” For the full year 2022, Allegiant generated a company-record $2.3b in revenue, up nearly 35% from the $1.7b it reported in 2021. With operating expenses increasing 53% year-on-year, as well as the airline taking a financial hit in due to a weather disruptions in Florida, the carrier squeezed out a $2.5m profit in 2022, compared with $152m in the 12 months ending 31 December 2021. “2022 was yet another difficult year,” Redmond says. “The operation was hit with countless challenges from Covid spikes to hurricanes, and most recently winter storms.” In November, Allegiant had said that Hurricane Ian, which crossed the Florida peninsula in the last week of September, had cost the company almost $40m. In 2022, Allegiant’s capacity increased nearly 14% over 2019, the last year unaffected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Looking ahead, Allegiant is “continuing to take a more conservative approach to growth”, anticipating a 4% capacity increase in 2023 “with much of that happening in the fourth quarter”, the airline says. Allegiant is also pressing forward with its proposed alliance with Mexico’s Viva Aerobus, which would give customers access to each airlines’ respective loyalty programmes, sales systems and route networks to operate flights together. The deal has been approved by Mexico’s Federal Economic Competition Commission but still needs the go-ahead from federal regulators in the USA. <br/>
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Southwest Airlines’ customers are furious about the company’s Christmas week service meltdown. But fliers may forgive the company sooner than you think. The airline is paying the price for canceling about half of its schedule between December 20 and December 29 – more than 16,700 flights during the busy holiday season – because of a combination of bad weather and an antiquated crew scheduling system. Southwest said that it lost about $350m in ticket sales for January and February because people have avoided bookings on the airline. No wonder: the holidays are perhaps the worst time of the year to strand customers. “It’s difficult to overstate how sour a taste this left in the hundreds of thousands of people at one of the most emotionally charged periods of the year,” said Scott Keyes, founder and chief flight expert for Going.com, a discount flight web site. “If it had happened in July, it’d be one thing. But they were the airline Grinch that stole Christmas,” said airline consultant Michael Boyd. Complicating Southwest’s recovery effort: Winter weather continues to batter the United States, and the airline (and its competitors) repeatedly canceled hundreds of flights a day last month. Even so, Boyd, Keyes and other experts expect Southwest will recover the overwhelming majority of its customer base, despite the aftereffects of the meltdown and flyers’ lingering anger.<br/>
Avelo Airlines began service out of its newest crew base in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday, meaning all 50 US states once again have commercial flights. The airline flew from Wilmington Airport to Orlando International Airport to mark the occasion. Andrew Levy, Avelo's chairman and CEO, joined customers for the trip and presented them with a celebratory boarding pass. Avelo will serve Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Orlando, Tampa and West Palm Beach with its fleet of Boeing 737 jets. "Nobody in recent memory has flown anywhere other than Orlando (from Wilmington),” Levy told USA TODAY in an interview ahead of the launch. "We’re flying to Orlando, but we're also flying to four other places that have never had service from that airport." As Levy said, Avelo Airlines will serve five Florida destinations from Wilmington, though none are currently planned to have daily service.<br/>
Pilots for Spanish airline Iberia Regional Air Nostrum have "overwhelmingly" voted to go on an indefinite strike amid a wage dispute with the company, Spain's largest airline pilots' union said on Wednesday. SEPLA said that 92% of its members voted to back the action, which seeks to "counteract the continuous blockade that technical crew members have been suffering from the company in the face of their legitimate demands". "Iberia Regional cannot continue to operate at the expense of pilots' working conditions," SEPLA added.<br/>The union did not provide a date for the start of the industrial action. Pilots are asking for a 30% pay rise between 2023 and 2024. At the outset of the dispute, the airline said such a hike would put its viability at risk. The new strike comes after eight 24-hour stoppages by Air Nostrum pilots - six in December and two at the beginning of January - led to dozens of flight cancellations. The airline said in a statement that it "profoundly" lamented the union's plans to strike and described them as "unjustified at the current stage of negotiations". It added that it maintained its willingness to negotiate and would sit down for talks with union representatives on Feb. 7 and 8. Air Nostrum, a franchisee of Spanish flag carrier Iberia - which in turn belongs to the International Consolidated Airlines Group - operates a network of regional domestic and international flights under Iberia codes.<br/>
Europe was entering an "inevitable" post-pandemic period of airline consolidation as legacy flag-carriers struggle to navigate through a competitive landscape, the CE of low-cost carrier Ryanair said Wednesday. "We are definitely, post-COVID, entering a four or five-year period of consolidation," Ryanair's Michael O'Leary told Reuters on the sidelines of a news briefing in Portugal's capital Lisbon. Many of Europe's legacy airlines are finding it tough to effectively compete with budget carriers, hampered by weak balance sheets that could be made more robust by merging with rivals, analysts have said. Lufthansa offered last month to buy a minority stake in ITA Airways, the loss-making successor of Italy's Alitalia, saying the southern European country was a prominent market both for business travellers and tourists. Lufthansa's bid has ignited talk of further potential sector consolidation as the industry seeks to plot a more profitable recovery after the easing of pandemic restrictions. The Portuguese government, which owns TAP [RIC:RIC:TAPA.UL] airline, has said it is considering an outright or partial sale of the business. Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and British Airways owner IAG are potential buyers, according to analysts. Both the Portuguese and Italian governments should get a commitment from potential buyers that they would grow the airlines' traffic by 50% over a five-year period, O'Leary said. "It is inevitable that AliItalia will be bought, TAP will be bought," O'Leary said. "And then I think it is likely that in the next couple of years easyJet and Wizz will also be taken out by the legacy carriers." <br/>
Airline staff at an Israeli airport were shocked when a couple decided to leave their baby at a check-in desk, after a disagreement over having to buy a separate ticket for their child. The incident happened at the Ryanair desk of Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport on Tuesday, the airline confirmed. Local news outlet KAN reported that the couple were travelling on Belgian passports to Brussels, when they discovered they had to pay extra for a seat for their baby. Airline staff told local press that they had simply left their child in the baby stroller by the desk and walked on to passport control. A Ryanair employee told local news source K12: “We’ve never seen anything like this. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.” According to the Israel Airports Authority, the couple had arrived late for their flight to Brussels, and seemed anxious to get through airport security – with or without their infant. A Ryanair spokesperson said: “These passengers travelling from Tel Aviv to Brussels (31 January) presented at check-in without a booking for their infant. They then proceeded to security leaving the infant behind at check-in. “The check-in agent at Ben Gurion Airport contacted Airport Security, who retrieved these passengers, and this is now a matter for local police.”<br/>
Hainan Airlines Holding Co Ltd has resumed commercial operations of the Boeing 737 Max in China on Wednesday, marking the second commercial service for the model by a Chinese airline since its March 2019 grounding. The domestic flight took off from Haikou, capital city of China’s southern Hainan province, at 0923 a.m. local time (0123 GMT) using the 737 MAX plane and headed to the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, according to flight tracking app VariFlight. Last month, China Southern Airlines Co Ltd scheduled a flight from the southern city of Guangzhou to Zhengzhou using a MAX which made its first passenger flight in China in nearly four years. Boeing CE Dave Calhoun pointed toward future increases in narrow-body jet production and voiced hopes that an upcoming visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken would lead eventually to “robust” plane orders.<br/>
As new budget airline Bonza takes to the skies, many aviation experts are questioning how sustainable the low-cost carrier will be. Bonza's unique approach involves flying large, 186-seater aircraft from their Sunshine Coast base to mostly regional destinations only a few times a week. And all while promising super low airfares. It's a model some commentators have had a hard time understanding. So who is funding Bonza, what's their approach, and how long will they keep pouring cash into a loss-making business? Bonza is funded by 777 Partners, a multi-billion-dollar US private equity giant that part-owns a similar Canadian budget airline called Flair. Among their other investments is a 20% stake in Melbourne Victory football club, as well as controlling ownership of major European clubs including Sevilla in Spain and Genoa in Italy. 777 founder Steve Pasko was on Bonza's inaugural flight on Tuesday and said he saw an opportunity in the Australian aviation market, which lacks an independent budget carrier. (Jetstar is owned by Qantas.) "Canada is one of the most significant countries in terms of average income — it has one of the highest ticket prices of any country in the world and it's dominated by two airlines," he said. "We found that Australia had a lot of the same demographics and we felt it was a very attractive market for low-cost carriers."<br/>