Allegiant Air announced Tuesday morning it will make Lehigh Valley International Airport its newest aircraft base, creating at least 66 new jobs and the potential for new routes out of the regional airport.
The budget aircraft carrier has seen years of growth at the airport, making the Lehigh Valley an attractive location, said Hilarie Grey, Allegiant’s director of corporate communication. The carrier has added new services to Nashville and Savannah, Georgia in recent months, and flights out of the airport sell well.
Most aircraft carriers have moved to a hub and spoke system, where long-distance flights are out of major airports like Newark or Philadelphia. These carriers require smaller markets like the Lehigh Valley to connect to one of these hubs in order to get to more distant destinations.
Allegiant plays against the grain by connecting smaller airports to to popular vacation getaways like Orlando and Myrtle Beach, Grey said. Flight crews generally travel out of bases and back in a single day, meaning Allegiant employees frequently get to sleep in their own beds at the end of the day.
“The truth is, the Lehigh Valley is a good sweet spot for our system,” Grey said. “We love to pick up demand that other carriers have left behind.”
About $500,000 of tax incentives offered by the state - largely for employee training and workforce development - didn’t hurt, either.
Allegiant and officials with the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority and Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. credited state Sen. Pat Browne with securing the funding that sweetened the deal. Browne said he was not aware of other markets looking to land the aircraft base but was led to believe the Lehigh Valley beat out larger regions.
“A public component was something that was necessary because it was a national search and the competing markets were offering public components,” he said.
Browne was excited about the economic opportunities Allegiant can offer to the Lehigh Valley. Allegiant offers services to distant cities like Denver and Las Vegas, and potential flights to those destinations would help attract business opportunities.
“We haven’t had Lehigh Valley flights to some of those places for as long as I can remember, maybe ever,” he said.
Basing two aircraft out of LVIA will require a $50 million investment, Grey said, and will eventually lead Allegiant to add new routes to and from the Hanover Township, Lehigh County facility. Grey did not disclose those destinations Tuesday.
“As of now, we are immediately hiring world-class pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, ground support staff to run the base and make it a wonderful, long-term success,” she said.
The Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority has formed a wish list of destinations it wants to add after conducting surveys of regular travelers and people in the region. Its findings have led staff to approach carriers about bringing in flights to Boston, San Juan and Washington D.C., but so far, none have followed through. Allegiant does offer flights to those markets, but Grey was tight-lipped about any connections.
“We strive to be good partners and make (those requests) part of the science behind the decisions,” she said.
Tom Stoudt, executive director of the airport authority, said none of the other carriers operating out of LVIA use it as an aircraft base. Allegiant’s added presence means they will move into vacant offices and storage space in the main terminal.
“We’re at about a third of our capacity, so we have lots of room for expansion,” he said.
Morning Call reporter Tom Shortell can be reached at 610-820-6168 or [email protected].
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