Nov. 08--Allegiant Air said Monday it will add two additional flights between Colorado Springs and Las Vegas to its weekly schedule in mid-February, the latest in a series of capacity increases that airlines are making in the Springs after three years of cutting flights and using smaller aircraft on remaining flights.
The Las Vegas-based carrier, which specializes in offering heavily discounted travel packages to popular southeastern and southwestern U.S. tourist destinations, already operates two weekly flights to Las Vegas on Mondays and Fridays and will add Sundays and Thursdays beginning Feb. 17. The airline also operates twice-a-week flights between the Springs and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, but ended flights to Long Beach, Calif., in August on a seasonal basis before announcing plans in September to end all service to Long Beach by Nov. 28.
"We constantly review schedules, looking for opportunities to increase service where needed. We look forward to seeing the Colorado Springs community embrace the additional flights," said Allegiant spokeswoman Kristine Cooper.
Airport officials also said Delta Air Lines will shift to larger aircraft Nov. 17 on its daily flight between the Springs and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, increasing the number of seats by 27 to 77; Delta also will expand capacity on its daily flight between the Springs and Atlanta by 23 seats to 160 on a seasonal basis next summer. Gisela Shanahan, the city's assistant aviation director for finance and administration, said officials are trying to convince Delta to use the larger Boeing 757 aircraft year-around on the Atlanta route.
Both Frontier and United airlines began slowly shifting this summer to larger aircraft on their flights between the Springs and Denver, and United also is making a similar shift on its flights between the Springs and Houston. Those shifts are expected to be completed next year.
Most of the nation's major airlines are phasing out 50-seat regional jets from their fleets because those aircraft are less fuel efficient and thus more costly to operate on a per-passenger basis than regional jets with 65 to 80 seats, Shanahan said.
The additional Allegiant flights and use of larger aircraft by Delta, Frontier and United, is expected to boost the number of available seats on flights leaving the Springs next year by about 25,000, or 3 percent, which should help the airport break a string of consecutive annual declines in passenger traffic that is expected to reach four this year.
"This is a welcome reversal of the capacity declines we have seen in the last three years in not only Colorado Springs but across the country," Shanahan said. "Airlines are evaluating markets more frequently and changing schedules more quickly, so we are cautiously optimistic about future service levels," Shanahan said.
Since the beginning of a fuel-price spike and the recession in 2008, airlines have eliminated nine flights and halted service to four cities out of the Springs -- reducing the number of available seats by 12.2 percent. Those cuts have meant that inexpensive fares sell out earlier and sometimes force passengers to drive to Denver International Airport to catch a flight to the same destination.
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