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Allegient Air


klfrodo
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getting hammered hard on 60 Minutes.

Former FAA and employees saying they would never fly Allegent due to past and current safety violations.

Not a matter of IF one of their planes is involved in a major incident,,, it’s a matter of WHEN..

 

Is it really worth the risk to save $100?

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I watched it too. We had been told by friends who moved to Vegas (where they are based) that friends of theirs who had worked for the airline said not to fly with them due to safety concerns. That being said, we have a trip booked with them in 2 weeks. We had a voucher due to a delay on a previous flight so it was free. Hope we make it!

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Allegent’s primary draw is not their cheap flights, which is still a draw, but they fly a lot of routes from smaller airports that the big guys don’t.

 

Owensboro, KY - Orlando non stop

Bowling Green KY - Destin Florida BA

EVV- Orlando non stop

 

They were doing Owensboro- Las Vegas and stopped the flight, not because they weren’t selling it out, but they needed the place elsewhere!

 

There are many more routes as above, flying out of smaller airports, going to places people may have to drive 1-2 hours to get to another airport that will require at least one plane change.

 

Travelers, living in large metropolitan areas, with large airline hubs don’t comprehend the conveniences airlines like Allegent brings to lower population areas.

 

This is not to suggest those airlines needn’t take care of safety concerns. It’s just saying that not everyone can be so flippant as to say they won’t fly this airlines or that one, because of a total lack of options.

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I can understand adults taking a chance on Allegiant Air - eyes wide open, willing to take the chance for convenience and price. However, I do not understand any adult who would put their children at risk of death for convenience and price. That, IMO, is reprehensible. Before anyone jumps in to say "but major airlines have had accidents too!", so what, when the risk is known to be higher, perhaps substantially higher, I wouldn't even risk a pet on Allegiant, much less a child.

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We have Frontier along with Allegiant at our local airport, we have never thought of flying Allegiant under any circumstances.

 

Being 50 minutes or so from PHL, we usually have to go there to catch our flights out...

 

I understand any plane can go down at anytime, yet why push the envelope unnecessarily if there are other reasonable and safer choices?

 

Convenience, for us, is not a reason to be sure.

 

bon voyage

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However, I do not understand any adult who would put their children at risk of death for convenience and price. That, IMO, is reprehensible. Before anyone jumps in to say "but major airlines have had accidents too!", so what, when the risk is known to be higher, perhaps substantially higher, I wouldn't even risk a pet on Allegiant, much less a child.
Being 50 minutes or so from PHL, we usually have to go there to catch our flights out...

 

I understand any plane can go down at anytime, yet why push the envelope unnecessarily if there are other reasonable and safer choices?

Unfortunately, humans are very bad at risk assessment, especially when it comes to air travel, about which the media are very good at whipping up hysteria because so many people are afraid of flying (even though many try to cover this up and pretend to themselves that they're not).

 

Even if everything that that programme said about Allegiant is true, it's very likely that choosing to drive 50 minutes to PHL instead of flying Allegiant from one's local airport will still be the more dangerous travel route by some margin. It's probably still more dangerous to drive from home to the local airport than it is take the Allegiant flight.

 

There are some very good reasons for not buying tickets to fly on airlines that have safety problems like this, and I too choose not to if I have another option. But actual risk of death is not one of them.

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I'm in the aerospace industry and have done with with Allegiant and Allegiant maintenance/engineering in the past. There was a time that I would never, ever fly them. However, times are changing. They'll never be my first choice, but they have made some pretty significant improvements. It also helps that their old, maintenance-fatigues MD-80s are on their way out, and (much) newer A320 family aircraft are on their way in. Kind of like going from a 1995 car to a 2018 car - you're just naturally going to have less issues. I would consider flying them now, at least on the Airbus equipment.

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To me, the most problematic aspects to flying with Allegiant are their lack of both interline agreements and the limited amount of "spares" in their system. If a flight does go MX, there's little slack in their system to compensate. Toss in the aspect of limited frequencies and Allegiant becomes a niche player in my airline selection repertoire.

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To me, the most problematic aspects to flying with Allegiant are their lack of both interline agreements and the limited amount of "spares" in their system. If a flight does go MX, there's little slack in their system to compensate. Toss in the aspect of limited frequencies and Allegiant becomes a niche player in my airline selection repertoire.

Agreed with this. I'm not as concerned with dying on Allegiant anymore, but the lack of options should something go wrong isn't ideal.

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I have something around a million miles in commerical aircraft plus time in everything from a 1923 Swallow bi-plane to helicopters without doors to WWII planes to all kinds of "current" small planes. I know the risks went I agree to fly and today, that is a general today, not the day after the 60 minutes report, I will not fly with Allegiant or Spirit. As others have said, a lot of maintanence questions, a lot of what if it goes MX questions and the reality that once you start adding on all of the upsells the price is not always so cheap I just don't want to deal with it. When I look at all of those Allegiant planes on the ground in LAS it reminds me of the time many years ago that I tried to save some money and took a Carnival Air flight to Florida and my tray table half fell off when we landed too hard....Air travel is a means to an end for me and I really want to get to that end on time and in one piece. Yes, it helps that I am 40 miles from Newark and 60 miles from PHL so I have choices but there are other airports within that hour's drive where I could go and get an Allegiant flight to save a few bucks but I won't do it. One way or the other it is just a problem waiting to happen.

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I have something around a million miles in commerical aircraft plus time in everything from a 1923 Swallow bi-plane to helicopters without doors to WWII planes to all kinds of "current" small planes. I know the risks went I agree to fly and today, that is a general today, not the day after the 60 minutes report, I will not fly with Allegiant or Spirit. As others have said, a lot of maintanence questions, a lot of what if it goes MX questions and the reality that once you start adding on all of the upsells the price is not always so cheap I just don't want to deal with it. When I look at all of those Allegiant planes on the ground in LAS it reminds me of the time many years ago that I tried to save some money and took a Carnival Air flight to Florida and my tray table half fell off when we landed too hard....Air travel is a means to an end for me and I really want to get to that end on time and in one piece. Yes, it helps that I am 40 miles from Newark and 60 miles from PHL so I have choices but there are other airports within that hour's drive where I could go and get an Allegiant flight to save a few bucks but I won't do it. One way or the other it is just a problem waiting to happen.

 

I'm right up there with you - 110k to 120k BIS miles each year, AA ExecPlat for the last 11 (since I was 23 years old). I've flown Allegiant once, and I've flown Spirit twice. In each case, I had very good experiences. But here's the thing - I wasn't on a time sensitive trip (just meeting friends in Vegas in all cases), and I did a personal item only (in the case of Spirit, I also popped for the big front seat for something like $30). In all cases, my experiences were shockingly nice - friendly crews, early flights, and a significant savings versus the other options I had. I won't make it a habit to fly either of them, but I don't immediately rule them out like I used to.

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On one of the other fora that I frequent someone wrote, in response to Southwest's incident today:

 

"Queue the collective sigh of relief from everyone at Allegiant HQ"

Edited by fbgd
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