Have you ever flown with Allegiant Air?

Old Nov 2, 2014, 11:18 pm
  #1  
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Have you ever flown with Allegiant Air?

I didn't like how you have to download their stupid app to not pay $5 for a printed ticket. Everything else was fine though.

They easily could have just had the ticket in a PDF or whatever on your mobile phone, but I guess the app is to feed you ads or something.
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Old Nov 3, 2014, 4:28 am
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walgreens, welcome to FlyerTalk!

Please follow the thread as it moves to the forum where Allegiant is discussed. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.
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Old Nov 6, 2014, 8:42 pm
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you can check-in online and print at home. Thems the breaks. I flew them pre-ULCC.
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Old Dec 15, 2014, 3:56 pm
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I did, before they pulled out of Fort Collins/Loveland CO. They weren't bad, but you've got to watch all the hidden charges. Like you said, $5 just to print your boarding pass.

There were a few times where the total cost to fly with G4, including bags, seat assignment, priority boarding, print your boarding pass, etc. was less than driving to Denver to catch Southwest. Also factor in that Southwest has a FF program, so discount your SWA flight 6/70 = 8.57% for that. Even with all that factored in, G4 was a bit cheaper and I saved the 70 mile drive to DEN.

However, what G4 can't give you at any price is that they don't have several flights a day going from your city to one of their hub cities. So, when a plane is delayed for whatever reason, you are stuck in your departure city, whereas SWA has another plane going in a couple of hours and several other options to get you to where you want to be -- perhaps delayed but that is better than "not at all today."

G4 isn't bad ... just calculate carefully. However, since they left KFNL, they really are not an option for me anymore. If you are based in LAS or other G4 hub city, they offer some interesting alternatives in smaller airports -- if that smaller airport is close to where you need to be.
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Old Dec 22, 2014, 12:47 am
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Love flying them! Notably, I also love Spirit.

I have flown their MD-80's (or 82's or whatever) from PIE to/from FWA. Got a one way for $55 last minute over the summer. That's worth paying $3 for a Coke.
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Old Jun 16, 2015, 6:38 pm
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Had a recent service issue with Allegiant on an EUG-OAK flight. They subbed an Airbus in for the regularly scheduled MD-80, with the result that seat assignments then were confused--some people, it seemed, were assigned to the same seats, or who knows. By the time I boarded, the FAs were directing people to take any open seat. Not a problem, except they weren't providing refunds for the seat reservation fee for quite a few people who weren't getting what they'd paid for.

At OAK, I talked with one of the Allegiant contract staff, who was friendly and helpful, and made some notation in my record. I followed it up with an email to Allegiant (since good luck contacting them otherwise), and after a couple weeks they sent me an apologetic email and refunded my $14 seat fee. Acceptable, at the end of the day.

I suspect that this kind of thing will occur with greater frequency as Allegiant increases the numbers of Airbuses in its fleet and swaps with MD-80s become more frequent. It will lead me to simply take my chances with check-in seat assignments, rather than paying money I might have to hope will be refunded if there's a swap.
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Old Jun 19, 2015, 5:48 pm
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I flew them last month on their inaugural RDU-PIE flight. The plane was an MD-80 delivered in the early 1990's to Aeromexico and it certainly felt old and their seats are noticeably less comfortable than on other airlines. Service was over quickly as the flight load was low and most people weren't purchasing anything. That said, we got in early and everyone I interacted with was very pleasant. No real complaints about the flight, I'd fly them again if the price was right.
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Old Jul 21, 2015, 12:14 pm
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Allegiant flight 313 diverted to ONT last night (7/20/2015)

I have just returned from a trip to Montana, and flew non-stop between LAX-BIL (Los Angeles to Billings, Montana), and back. Both flights, on MD-80s were sold out.

The outgoing flight to Billings (LAX-BIL) was delayed about 90 minutes, no big deal.

The return flight last night BIL-LAX (flight AAY 313 on 7/20/2015) took off about an hour late, then was diverted to Ontario (ONT) airport, due to fog and runway issues at LAX. I do not fault Allegiant Air for the flight diversion, nor for the late departure - these were due to LAX air traffic issues.

However, once we landed at Ontario Airport, we sat on the tarmac for nearly 3 hours. The captain and flight crew did not have any ground support at the Ontario airport, no gate, no fuel, no plan of action. To make matters more confusing, the captain and crew periodically announced that we would re-fuel and fly to LAX, then, the story would change to "we will deplane in Ontario". Back and forth between these two possible scenarios, and they even denied saying we would de-plane in Ontario. Several passengers recorded the conflicting announcements.

When we were finally allowed to exit the MD-80 plane, it was down the tail stairs, walking across the tarmac to the terminal stairs. The Pilot first announced that all checked luggage would remain on the plane, then, after half of the passengers had deplaned, the pilot announce that the checked luggage would be sent out to baggage claim. The crew also told us that no ground transport to LAX would be provided, we were to figure that out ourselves, or call "Allegiant Air Customer Service".

Delta and Alaska Agents were in the terminal, and very informative and helpful, even though we were not their passengers. In fact, the Alaska Agent got in contact with Allegiant in Las Vegas, and arranged for bus transportation to LAX for the stranded Allegiant passengers, and our Allegiant Pilot even offered to use his personal credit card to pay for the buses.

Many thanks to the Alaska Agent who went the extra mile, and probably won-over many new Alaska Air customers! Thanks to her, two large motor-coaches arrived for our trip to LAX.

My sympathies to the Allegiant Pilot and Crew members, who obviously are doing the best they can under the circumstances.

In summary, my first, and likely last experience with Allegiant Air gave me little confidence in their customer service. The employees are not empowered to solve problems, and have no corporate support system in place to help their customers in the event of an emergency diversion.

In the future, I will likely pay more money to avoid flying with Allegiant. Sure, I saved $100 on Allegiant's cheap airfare, but that savings comes with the heavy price of poor customer support.

Last edited by ThriftyWanderer; Jul 21, 2015 at 1:14 pm Reason: edited to add LAX-BIL airport codes
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Old Jul 21, 2015, 4:40 pm
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Like other ULCCs, when things go fine the savings are worth it, but when irrops happen, then it really hits the fan.

I feel bad for the employees who work for Allegiant whose hands were obviously tied. When living in Las Vegas we had a family friend who was an FA for Allegiant, she reported some of the same things. Kudos to the Alaska staff who helped get people where they needed to go.

So far I have a few dozen G4 flights under my belt with no delays >1 hour. I appreciate the value they provide, but I've never had an experience like yours or my reaction would probably be similar.
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Old Jul 29, 2015, 9:26 am
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Originally Posted by Big4Flyer
Like other ULCCs, when things go fine the savings are worth it, but when irrops happen, then it really hits the fan.

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This is the reason I would not fly them if I had a choice.

I have had several charter flights on Allegiant from San Jose to Laughlin and they were fine - seating assigned at the airport, comfortable planes, friendly employees, on time arrivals and departures. And the price was right, since the flight was comped by Harrahs.
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