Low-cost airline Allegiant Air is pulling again from a Texas airport that’s seen fast progress during the last decade.
The Las Vegas-based ultralow-cost service will finish its plane and crew base operations at Austin-Bergstrom Worldwide Airport (AUS) efficient Jan. 7, 2025, a spokesperson confirmed Monday.
Allegiant will nonetheless serve the airport, which it says will stay a key a part of its community. Nevertheless, the airline will now not base crew and plane in Austin, citing “circumstances exterior of our management.”
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South Terminal closure deliberate
At subject, Allegiant tells TPG, is constrained gate area amid renovation plans within the works in Austin.
Allegiant is predicated out of Austin’s South Terminal, a small satellite tv for pc concourse that’s a brief drive from the airport’s main terminal.
Amid Austin’s quick progress in recent times, the airport has plans to ultimately shut the South Terminal to permit for development of a midfield concourse and new taxiways on the airfield. That’s slated to occur no later than 2026.
As a part of the closure of the smaller terminal, which opened in 2017, Allegiant must relocate to the airport’s predominant terminal — which it is planning on doing; the airline plans to proceed serving the airport with flights.
Nevertheless, that transfer comes with a caveat, the airline informed TPG Monday.
“Sadly, the gate area now we have been supplied is not going to permit us to maintain our base at AUS,” an Allegiant spokesperson stated in an announcement.
Austin has been an Allegiant base since 2021, when the service introduced plans to take a position $75 million there, with plans to make use of at the least 89 workers and base three Airbus A320 jets.
It’s unclear to this point what, if any, Allegiant routes may be affected as soon as it ceases its base operation in Austin come January 2025.
This month, the service’s Austin route map consists of 18 nonstop locations across the nation, in response to the beneath map from aviation analytics agency Cirium.
Austin airport officers reply
In an announcement Monday, Austin’s Division of Aviation acknowledged Allegiant’s choice and reiterated that the service’s transfer to finish its base within the metropolis does not imply it’s exiting the market.
“We stay dedicated to supporting their nonstop flights from AUS and respect the necessary worth they convey to Central Texas vacationers,” an airport spokesperson informed TPG.
A date has not but been set for the everlasting closure of the South Terminal facility, town stated.
Regardless of fast progress in recent times, Austin has skilled a couple of hiccups of late. Virgin Atlantic introduced final fall it might stop its Austin nonstop to London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR), citing headwinds within the tech trade.
American Airways additionally scaled again its service out of the airport, although Delta Air Strains has largely jumped in to fill the void.
Between January and April, passenger visitors on the airport was down barely versus the identical interval final yr, with a drop of round 0.25%, in response to figures launched this month by the airport.
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