Allegiant celebrates 20 years at Bellingham International Airport

Discussions about the future of commercial service at Bellingham International Airport sometimes ignore the present – ​​and the presence of the only passenger airline that both has a base at BLI and consistently serves the largest share of travelers on flights.

Allegiant Air celebrated its 20th anniversary serving Bellingham in 2024. The budget airline has been at the Bellingham area’s BLI for more than half of the airport’s history of passenger aircraft service, which dates back to 1985.

“When we started in Bellingham, we did what we called turns from other locations,” said Kristen Schilling-Gonzalez, vice president of planning at Allegiant. “So planes from Las Vegas, crew from Las Vegas fly to Bellingham and then back to Las Vegas.”

But after a few years, the airline, founded in 1997 and now headquartered in Las Vegas, was seeing what Schilling-Gonzalez called “significant” demand from travelers in both Washington state and British Columbia. By 2009, a base was established at BLI, which the airline says now permanently houses more than 100 employees, including pilots, flight attendants, and maintenance and station staff, as well as two Airbus A319 jets.

Bellingham is one of 24 bases for Allegiant, the closest being in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It was also one of the earliest bases established by the airline and fueled BLI’s rapid growth in passenger traffic, which was one of the reasons the Bellingham airport terminal more than tripled in size in 2014.

“Allegiant,” said Mike Hogan, public affairs director at the Port of Bellingham, “is an excellent, cost-effective option for millions of potential travelers living within an hour’s drive of BLI.”

Leading BLI in passenger numbers

The numbers prove Allegiant’s impact. In terms of the share of passengers and the total number of non-stop destinations flown, it is currently and has always been the largest airline in recent years.

According to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), Allegiant carried 43% of BLI passengers for the twelve months ended July 2024. During the same period, Southwest Airlines (which ceased BLI operations on August 4) had a 41% share and Alaska Airlines/SkyWest had the remainder.

For previous years, BTS data showed that even after Southwest began operating in 2021, Allegiant still had the lion’s share of passengers: Allegiant had 39% compared to 34% for Southwest in all of 2022, and Allegiant reached 43% compared to 40 % for Southwest in calendar year 2023.

Before the COVID pandemic upended air travel, BTS credited Allegiant with a 67% share of Bellingham passengers in 2019.

“Historically, Allegiant has maintained approximately 50-60% market share in enplanements (passenger boarding) at BLI since the start of operations, with the exception of 2022-2024 when Southwest Airlines entered the market,” Hogan said.

He said this resulted in the port generating about $1.2 million a year in revenue from Allegiant’s presence in both 2023 and an estimated 2024. This figure includes lease payments, boarding and landing fees and other directly related activities.

Publicly traded company Allegiant said it could not provide figures comparing its Bellingham operation to its overall system for competitive reasons. But overall, BTS ranked Allegiant as the 11th largest airline by passenger numbers in 2023. According to its own investor information, Allegiant has almost 6,000 employees, more than 120 aircraft and more than 550 routes in the USA

Allegiant pilot is also a school bus driver

Allegiant’s routes include nonstop service between Bellingham and six destinations: Phoenix/Mesa, Los Angeles, Oakland, Palm Springs and Las Vegas year-round and San Diego seasonally in the summer. However, flight frequency varies, partly because of Allegiant’s focus on leisure travel and partly because of its round-trip, nonstop route structure – the airline is careful to emphasize that it does not sell connecting flights.

“For us, that means our crew members start and end their day on base,” Allegiant’s Schilling-Gonzalez said. “These are people who live in Bellingham and the surrounding communities. They are part of the area.”

Schilling-Gonzalez said the bond is one reason BLI is a well-performing base for the airline in terms of “operational reliability.”

“We don’t necessarily have the same problems as some larger cities,” she said. “In Bellingham, all of our crews live there. They want to be there.”

They also do a unique brand of local news here.

Hogan recalled that Allegiant driver Mark Miller won first place in the 2016 School Bus Driver International Safety Competition. Hogan said Miller was not only a Bellingham-based captain for Allegiant, but also a substitute bus driver for Bellingham Public Schools.

According to a July 2024 article on the school district’s website, Miller still flies for Allegiant and is still a substitute bus driver, “transporting our students on yellow buses when his schedule allows.” And still a winner: Miller also took first place internationally in the “Transit Bus” category in the 2024 competition.

Canada is a central success factor

Schilling-Gonzalez praised both the Bellingham base team and the demand in the Pacific Northwest and north of the border for Allegiant’s two decades of success at BLI. It’s probably no coincidence that Allegiant lists the airport as “Bellingham WA / Vancouver BC (BLI)” in its website booking engine, nor that speed limit signs on airport roads are printed in both miles and kilometers per hour.

She said following the extent of the pandemic and associated border closures – which led to Allegiant suspending Bellingham flights for about two months in 2020 – passenger traffic continues to increase, including from Canadian-origin traffic.

“Now about two-thirds of our traffic comes into Bellingham from the Canadian side,” she said, approaching levels in the mid-2010s. “To me it just shows that there are a lot of opportunities there.”

Other possibilities in terms of new BLI routes may be more distant.

Before the pandemic, Allegiant had tried flights between Bellingham and several destinations, including Honolulu and Maui. Schilling-Gonzalez said most of them didn’t grow tall enough to train. But Hawaii was different.

“They did well for us; actually pretty good,” she said. “The only problem was that the type of aircraft we were using was nearing the end of its life.”

That meant cutting Hawaii routes and aircraft. “It wasn’t a demand issue,” she said.

Increasing frequency, not goals

But now, she said, adding routes would likely mean adding a third jet to the Bellingham base at a time when new Allegiant planes ordered from Boeing have been slow to come to market. And it would have to be busy to justify its placement in BLI.

“Do we have enough to make this work, to make sure that the plane flies, that we use this capital to the best of our ability,” she said. “So it’s not as simple as, ‘Oh, let’s just add a route and see if it works.’ Essentially we would have to find multiple routes to make sure they work.”

Schilling-Gonzalez said the airline’s increased frequency to existing destinations such as Las Vegas and Palm Springs, planned for early 2025, is more likely.

Meanwhile, she said Allegiant will continue to focus on low-cost leisure travel – including ticket sales exclusively directly with Allegiant – and maintain a strong base and operations in Bellingham.

As Allegiant turns 20, is it on your wish list for BLI?

“I would be happy if passenger demand continues to increase,” she said. “The best way for us to figure out if we should add flights is that our current flights are so full that we have to do it. Essentially, we are forcing our hand. Where the only logical thing would be to add the service.”

Editor’s Note: A look at future airline growth plans for Bellingham International Airport coming soon.

Frank Catalano writes about economics and related topics for CDN; Reach him at [email protected].