New Service Starts This Week

This Friday, November 19, is a big day at the Springfield airport marking the beginning of new air service to Austin, Texas, and Punta Gorda, Florida. The addition of these routes gives the airport a total of 15 non-stop destinations. Allegiant Air is providing the new service. The low-cost airline specializes in flying to vacation destinations.

The addition of service to Austin and Punta Gorda means that customers can now fly on Allegiant non-stop from Springfield to nine destinations, coast-to-coast. Those nine destinations are:
 

Los Angeles (LAX)	Destin/Ft. Walton Beach (VPS)
Las Vegas (LAS)	Tampa/St. Petersburg (PIE)
Phoenix/Mesa (IWA)	Punta Gorda/Ft. Myers (PGD)
Austin (AUS)	Orlando Sanford (SFB)
Houston (HOU)

Service to Austin and Punta Gorda will be year-round, flying twice a week. Flight days, times and fares are available at www.allegiant.com.

The pandemic business climate has been difficult for both airlines and airports, but Springfield and Allegiant have fared relatively well.

For the period January – September of this year Springfield passenger numbers were down 20 percent when compared to the same period in 2019 (pre-pandemic). While that number is far from rosy, other airports in the region have fared worse.
 

Airport	Total Passengers Jan-Sept 2019	Total Passengers Jan-Sept 2021	Percent Change
Springfield (SGF)	884,114	698,081	- 21%
NW Arkansas (XNA)	1,365,548	827,385	- 39%
Tulsa (TUL)	2,276,153	1,645,916	- 27%
Kansas City (MCI)	8,876,077	5,438,808	- 38%
St. Louis (STL)	11,666,148	7,286,532	- 37

The addition of the new Allegiant routes should help the Springfield airport even more as customers slowly return to flying.

As for Allegiant’s overall performance, the airline reports its third quarter operating revenues were up and that it’s the only domestic airline to grow revenue from pre-pandemic levels.