Allegiant Travel reports flat November passenger counts

Allegiant Travel Co., in keeping with recent months, reported flat passenger counts during November.

The Las Vegas-based discount carrier said the 558,000 passengers it boarded marked a 0.1 percent decline from the same month in 2012. Although scheduled service on the company’s Allegiant Air unit was up 4 percent, this was offset dropping most charter flights.

The number of miles each passenger flew rose 2.4 percent overall to 538.3 million, while the percent of seats filled went up 0.2 points to 83.1 percent.

Passenger numbers should pick up this month following the launch of several new routes.

The total estimated revenue from each seat mile flown will decline in the range of 5.5 percent-5.9 percent, similar to what other airlines have reported. This happened because of a late Thanksgiving this year, with the typically busy going-home day on Dec. 1 instead of November as happened last year.

However, costs will rise more than expected due to the delay in obtaining government approval to put newly purchased Airbus A320 jets on to Allegiant’s operating certificate.