Allegiant Travel Company has airline operating revenue of $565.4 million for the third quarter – an increase of 0.9% over the prior year. Airline only operating income fell by 14.1% to $5.8 million with a net loss of $5.6 million – a gain over last year’s $15.2million loss. Excluding charges relation to fleet depreciation, Allegiant airline’s operating margin for the quarter was 13.0% - up from 2.7% a year ago.
Maurice J. Gallagher, Jr., chairman and CEO of Allegiant Travel Company, said: "The third quarter marked another quarter of airline operating profits, excluding special charges. Year to date we have delivered industry-leading financial performance yielding an adjusted airline-only operating margin of 13 percent.”
Gallagher highlighted the continued investment in the Allegiant Extra product, with 14 aircraft to date having been retrofitted with this product. He expect roughly one-third of the fleet to be retrofitted by the end of 2024. “These diversified revenue streams, coupled with our unique, low-utilization model will continue to differentiate us from our peers,” said Gallagher.
Gregory Anderson, president of Allegiant Travel Company, noted that despite fuel costs rising nearly 30 percent intra-quarter, the team delivered an airline-only adjusted earnings per share of $0.31 driven by an increase in TRASM of 1.4 percent over the prior year. “This increase in unit revenue was extra impressive given the unprecedented strength of off-peak leisure demand during the same period last year,” said Anderson. “While leisure demand during our peak periods continues to outperform pre-pandemic levels, we experienced a return of normalization during the off-peak periods. Our ability to match capacity with leisure demand trends was nicely put on display as we reduced capacity by 45 percent during the off-peak period of September versus the peak season of July.”
Allegiant will take delivery of its first Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in early 2024.