Comments on: Allegiant Buys ex-Thomson 757s for Hawai’i Flying, I’m Looking at Long Beach

By: What is Allegiant Air Thinking? - >> The Cranky Flier

What is Allegiant Air Thinking? - >> The Cranky Flier — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:47:08 +0000

[...] Beach last year, it didn’t seem like a city that would fit into the Allegiant model . . . until Hawai’i came into focus. With Allegiant acquiring 757s to fly to Hawai’i, Long Beach would be a natural jumping off [...]

By: T100 Week Part 2: Alaska Airlines in Hawaii | The Airline Service Guru

T100 Week Part 2: Alaska Airlines in Hawaii | The Airline Service Guru — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:20:58 +0000

[...] while back, when Allegiant Air announced that they were buying 6 757s to be delivered in the next couple of years, there was a lot of speculation about exactly which [...]

By: Dano

Dano — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:35:10 +0000

Yes… It’s called “Augmented Crew” and it is legal for Part 121 Flag operations. The First Officers will be type rated as PIC in the jet and the flight will operate with a crew of 3 as a “turn” with no overnight.

ATA used to do it on these routes, as did Aloha. Nearly every International airline uses “heavy” or “augmented” crews on long haul flights that exceed 8 hours of flight time.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:53:29 +0000

Looking at Seatguru, Allegiant crams their MD-80/83s full of 17″ wide seats with 30″ seat pitch.

I’ve flown on a Suntrips charter to Hawaii once from SFO with similar seats, and it was pure torture. So I guess I’ll welcome Allegiant for hopefully helping keep the prices in check, but I’ll continue to fly in United’s Economy Plus seats.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:29:15 +0000

@ NM: G4 will have to start flying 'test' routings under ETOPS rules, but not actually over water, so I wouldn't be surprised to see BLI-FLL or BLI-MCO/SFD as part of their testing.

By: NM

NM — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:21:13 +0000

Is there a chance that the 757s will operate from east-coast airports like GSP? An interesting route would be GSP-LGB-HNL.

By: CF

CF — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:51:57 +0000

Bill from DC wrote:

re B6, is the range of an A320 (3,200 nm) not sufficient to get from LGB to HNL?

Range isn't the issue - it's the overwater requirements that kill. Flying over long stretches of ocean with nothing around means that you need to load up with a ton of extra fuel. It's that requirement that effectively kills the Airbus on that route.

By: AG

AG — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:44:11 +0000

Bill from DC wrote:

re B6, is the range of an A320 (3,200 nm) not sufficient to get from LGB to HNL?

The A320's definitely have the range, but as far as I know, none of B6's airplanes are ETOPs equipped (and B6 isn't an ETOPS certified operator)...

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:32:16 +0000

I think that one of the more interesting questions is will they serve LIH, OGG, KOA, or ITO? They love package deals, so they’ll have to go into HNL. But they prefer the underserved airports with less competition, which means ITO, KOA, and to a lesser extent LIH. LGB-LIH direct on a LCC would be a dream for me.

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:30:59 +0000

Oh, I guess the same logic works against overnight flying from Hawaii to the mainland: why put a person on a plane for the night when you can otherwise sell them a hotel bed?