Search and Buy Allegiant Air Flights

The first plane from Indianapolis was greeted by officials and the traditional water-spray salute.

“We are excited to welcome Allegiant to the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport,” airport president and CEO Rick Piccolo said.

“With three new nonstop destinations and Allegiant’s ultra low-cost fares, our community and its visitors will now have easy access to high-demand destinations.”

The airport now has seven carriers and 15 nonstop destinations. The addition of Allegiant is a notable boost to its service to the Midwest. With introductory one-way tickets starting at $83, it’s the first truly low-cost option from Sarasota-Bradenton.

The ultra-low-cost carrier will begin routes in April.

Allegiant Air is coming to Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport and bringing two new nonstop routes with it.

The Las Vegas-based ultra-low-cost carrier on Tuesday made a surprising move into the regional airport, announcing year-round service beginning in April to Indianapolis International Airport, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and Pittsburgh International Airport.

This commitment from Allegiant bucks what has traditionally been Sarasota-Bradenton’s most significant hurdle to gaining new carriers and routes: It hasn’t been easy for airport CEO Frederick “Rick” Piccolo and his team to lure new flights into the regional airport when Tampa International Airport and its colossal line-up of travel offerings is just to the north.

Allegiant, though, appears less concerned with its neighbors.

The budget-friendly carrier currently offers 40 destinations out of Punta Gorda Airport to the south and 54 out of St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport to the north.

Both of those airports are even closer to Sarasota-Bradenton than Tampa International, and even though Piccolo has been courting Allegiant since the airline was in its infancy, signing it on seemed unlikely when what he was offering was wedged in between the two.

“This one took us a little by surprise — that we were able to push them across the finish line,” Piccolo said.

But after years of pitches, Allegiant approached his team about a month ago, and negotiations steamrolled from there, Piccolo said.

The new service, expected to bring 100,000 new passengers annually, comes on the heels of an announcement from Elite Airways that adds nonstop service between Sarasota-Bradenton and Pittsburgh beginning in February.

Bringing back routes

The new routes restore three once-popular destinations to the regional airport.

Travelers haven’t been able to fly nonstop to Cincinnati and Indianapolis from Sarasota-Bradenton for about six years, Piccolo said, and it’s been roughly 15 years since U.S. Airways plucked its Pittsburgh route from the lineup.

“Giving the pricing model they have, we think it will do very well,” he said. “Especially, the cities that they’ve chosen — Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis — were all good cities for us in the prior years before those services went away.”

St. Petersburg and Punta Gorda have been so popular with travelers that adding Sarasota-Bradenton to the mix was a natural move toward more growth, said Bud Hafer, manager of airport affairs for Allegiant.

Traffic was up 12 percent last year at St. Petersburg, and the airport welcomed 2.06 million passengers. Allegiant has a strong presence in St. Petersburg and is responsible for 54 of the airport’s 57 routes, but its grip is even tighter at Punta Gorda Airport, where Allegiant has 40 routes and is its only carrier. Punta Gorda welcomed 1.3 million passengers in the 12 months ending Nov. 30 and saw more than a 14 percent increase in November when compared with the same month in 2016.

The start of service to Sarasota-Bradenton won’t rob from the other two airports, Hafer said, but instead will add to the offerings in the region. His customers have been vocal about wanting a Sarasota-Bradenton flight.

“It’s because the demand is so great that we can provide the service directly to Sarasota-Bradenton,” Hafer said. “We’ve grown tons in Punta Gorda and St. Pete, and this is about continuing growth and expanding it and really making Allegiant the destination airline for Southwest Florida.”

“It’s not going to change any of the growth plans in Punta Gorda or St. Pete,” Hafer continued. “We plan to grow there as well. This is just an additional destination. We’re very strong in Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, so we’ve got plenty of flights to go around.”

Hafer didn’t elaborate on specific destinations, but he did say that Allegiant was exploring additional Sarasota-Bradenton routes, too.

With Allegiant on board, Sarasota-Bradenton can now offer travelers seven airlines and 15 nonstop routes.

Stirring interest

It’s a substantial bump for an airport that suffered a major blow in 2012 when AirTran left and took about a third of the airport’s passenger traffic with it.

Since then, it’s been a revolving door of sorts as Sarasota-Bradenton and local tourism officials have tried to attract new carriers by waving the first two years of fees at the airport and offering marketing incentives.

The program has seen some success, most recently with Elite Airways. The boutique airline came to Southwest Florida in 2016 with a single flight to Portland, Maine, and has since added routes to Pittsburgh and White Plains, New York.

The incentives packages don’t always lead to that kind of growth, though. WestJet gave Sarasota-Bradenton a try in 2015 with a single route to Toronto and then canceled service roughly a year later.

Even with that turbulence, Piccolo is hopeful the Allegiant deal will stir some interest among other airlines. Now that a dynamic ultra-low-cost carrier has moved in, it could encourage competitors such as Frontier, Sun Country and Spirit and even more traditional airlines to consider a move to Sarasota-Bradenton.

“It put us on (the ultra-low-cost carrier) map but, secondly, it shows that a carrier of this significance sees the growth and the potential here,” he said. “And it tends to make other airlines at least take a second look at us, both existing carriers and carriers we don’t have.”

Tourism opportunities

The deal also poses a unique opportunity for the tourism markets in both Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Allegiant is easing the path to the Midwest in a way that Sarasota-Bradenton hasn’t seen since AirTran’s departure. Beyond United’s service to Chicago and Delta’s seasonal route to Detroit, nonstop travel options to that part of the country have been slim in recent years. The ease that comes with nonstop routes is essential to attracting visitors, said Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota County.

“If you look at Allegiant’s history, they usually come in at the beginning with direct flights, and they add, and they add quickly,” Haley said. “The low fares are exciting, but we hear from a lot of our visitors that it’s more about the direct flights.”

Cincinnati is a particularly exciting addition, Haley said, because her team had already identified that market as an under-performing spot that could bring in more visitors. There’s already funding allotted in this fiscal year’s budget to try to bring in more visitors from Ohio in April, May and June to ease the post-season lull.

“It should have better numbers than it does, so we feel like, with a little push, it should be better,” she said.

She and Elliott Falcione, the director of Manatee County’s tourism agency, both have high hopes for the Ohio and Indiana routes.

The new flights to Pittsburgh, though, could bring some complications to the airlines.

Typically, Sarasota County doesn’t see too many visitors from there, but Bradenton has strong ties to that area through its spring training connection with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Now, between the new Allegiant and Elite routes into Sarasota-Bradenton, along with Pittsburgh flights to Punta Gorda, St. Petersburg and Tampa International, Falcione has quite a few airplane seats to fill. They’re all going to need passengers to survive.

“There are a lot of seats available now on different carriers,” he said. “We need Pittsburghers and Sarasota-Bradenton residents to embrace the flights, so we can enhance them and hopefully we never lose it.”

“I’m excited to learn the business model of Allegiant and see how the target market that they go after integrates with our target market,” Falcione said. “We’ll roll up our sleeves and continue to work really hard with Sarasota-Bradenton. They’ve got real momentum right now.”

But there’s more to that momentum than just filling hotel beds and bringing in visitor dollars.

The three new routes are exciting, Falcione said, but what additional airline service can do for the community as a whole is the real highlight.

When companies look at making a move to this region, they look at just how easy it is to travel here. More nonstop flights and more carriers sweeten those kinds of deals.

Adding businesses means more jobs, real estate sales, projects and, in turn, a big economic boost to the community.

There’s a lot more riding on those new airplane seats than passengers.

“It’s not just about the visitors,” Falcione said. “It’s such a domino effect.”