Growth at Allegiant Travel begins to show signs of fading

Growth at Allegiant Travel Co. began to taper off in October.

During the month, the airline boarded 417,000 passengers on scheduled service, 11.3 percent more than a year ago, and boosted total flying by 9 percent as measured in revenue passenger miles. The number of flights rose 11.5 percent, but the average trip length dropped 2 percent to 904 miles.

Earlier this year, the company started accelerating its growth on the expectation that recession had turned into recovery but found consumers were still being frugal with their travel dollars. Allegiant then opted to scale back its growth.

As a result, October numbers fell short of the first 10 months this year, when passenger counts rose 14 percent, revenue passenger miles rose 16.8 percent and the number of flights went up 12.9 percent .