Allegiant Air history

After a trademark dispute with West Jet Air Center of Rapid City, South Dakota, and with the name's similarity to WestJet Airlines of Calgary, Alberta, the airline adopted the name Allegiant Air and received its operating certificate for scheduled and charter domestic operations in 1998.

Scheduled service began in October, 1999, connecting Las Vegas and Fresno, California with Douglas DC-9-21 and DC-9-51 aircraft.

On the 13th of December, 2000, Allegiant Air filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In June 2001, Maurice J. Gallagher, Jr. joined the airline and soon became its President and Chief Executive Officer.

For example, in 2004, it also began giving passengers the option of booking flight and hotel packages from 13 cities to Las Vegas.

In May 2006, Allegiant Travel Company filed plans for an initial public offering (IPO). It officially began trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the stock ticker symbol, ALGT, in December of that year.

The airline began service out of their new focus city on October 25, 2007.

On January 29, 2008, Allegiant opened their sixth base at Washington's Bellingham International Airport on March 1, 2008.

Nonstop service between Oakland, CA, (OAK) and Bellingham, WA, (BLI) begins February 2, 2009.

On February 1, 2010, Allegiant began operations at Orlando International Airport (MCO). The Company moved one half of it's Orlando schedule to Orlando International Airport in order to test revenue streams at the higher cost airport.

In August 2012, Allegiant Air entered a lease agreement to lease nine Airbus A319 aircraft, and in December 2012, announced its intention to acquire nine Airbus A320 aircraft.

In 2014, Allegiant Air celebrated 15 years of low-cost leisure travel, a journey from just one plane flying from Fresno to Las Vegas to a fleet of 68 aircraft, flying over 7 million passengers and serving 99 US cities, more than any other domestic low-cost airline.

Since 2015, although the airline prefers to use smaller/secondary airports, Allegiant Air has been growing at major airports, such as Cincinnati, Memphis, Raleigh/Durham, Indianapolis, and San Antonio.

In 2017, Allegiant Air took delivery of ten brand-new A320 with fuel-efficient sharklets.

Also, in October, the final Boeing B757 was retired from service.In November 2018, the last McDonnell Douglas MD 80 was retired.

In 2019, Allegiant announced the addition of three new bases, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Savannah, Georgia, Nashville, Tennessee, and Des Moines, Iowa.

In 2021, Allegiant Air is moving towards recovery with an expansionary vision.