There are some places on my bucket list to visit before I die, and then there are other places which I have absolutely no desire to visit at all. The Redneck Riviera falls into the latter category despite being hugely popular as a regional destination. And now, it’s become popular enough that it has expanded west. Allegiant seems to have found footing in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and it has grown it yet again this week.
The Redneck Riviera is apparently better known by the local tourist bureaus as the Emerald Coast. That is generally recognized as the Florida gulf coast from Panama City to the Alabama border. But here’s the thing… the border doesn’t end that coastal region. Alabama has a little tiny area of land that touches the Gulf, though it is primarily dominated by Mobile Bay. There is, however, an area just east of there that might as well be part of Florida. That is where Gulf Shores lies.
This entire region has long been a center of aviation, but that wasn’t about flying passengers. The first Naval Air Station in the US was opened in Pensacola in 1911, and it is today the home of the Blue Angels. The area’s commercial aspirations are decidedly more recent. Panama City (ECP) didn’t even open until 2010, and that’s when Southwest started flying to the region as part of a deal with the developer remaking the area. GUF was around before that, but it didn’t become viable for airlines until it had a functional passenger terminal that was only just built.
Over time, these four airports have outpaced the domestic system, tripling from 0.2 percent of domestic departures to as high as 0.6 percent. That may not sound like a lot, but it is a notable change. It’s also pretty interesting considering how all of these airports sit only an hour’s drive from the next one.
The peak season on the panhandle is in summer, so it’s a very different situation than the rest of Florida which peaks in winter. That’s because the panhandle has seasons which, unlike the rest of the state, may involve “not being a hellish swamp.” Winter highs barely get into the 60s on average. So, you won’t be surprised to see that this is a very seasonal market.
GUF/ECP/PFN/VPS/PNS Departing Seats by Month
Data via Cirium
Back in the day, these airports couldn’t even break 200,000 departing seats in a month until ECP opened. Today, if they don’t break 500,000 in a summer month, that would be a big disappointment. Ignoring 2021 when airlines were desperate to place airplanes anywhere people would fly, this has been nothing but a solid growth market. There was barely even a downward blip during the peak of the pandemic.
The seasonality of the new flying became more pronounced before the pandemic, but it really went into overdrive afterwards. Lately, seats have more than doubled from winter to summer.
This is lumpy, however. There have been definitely winners and losers by airport. Pensacola was the population center with the naval presence, so it’s no surprise to see it become the largest airport in the region, especially in off-peak times. But look what happened once ECP opened… nothing changed. It was entirely additive as the area just exploded in popularity. I suppose it was popular before, but it was more of a drive market.
Departing Seats by Airport in Redneck Riviera
Data via Cirium
Today, it’s Destin/Fort Walton Beach (VPS) that is the true summer rock star. It has far more variability than Pensacola with about 50 to 60 percent of PNS’s seats in winter, sometimes surging to more than PNS flies in summer. But before I move to the next chart, look at GUF. It is basically nothing right now, but that is quickly changing. I’ll get to that more later.
This region used to be dominated by Delta with upwards of 70 percent of departing seats. But over time, American made inroads as did Southwest. And now, Delta is closer to 40 percent at best (in winter), and American can be larger. Southwest is third, but there’s Allegiant in fourth place.
Allegiant didn’t even start flying to the region until May 2016 when it opened up VPS. This past summer, there was service to, well, pretty much where you’d expect: anywhere north of the panhandle. The airline has turned it from a drive market to a fly market, or at least in a small part with up to 16x daily flights in peak summer.
Allegiant VPS Destinations – July 2025
Data via Cirium
And now let’s get back to Gulf Shores. When the terminal opened for summer 2025, Allegiant started with 6 cities (in brown and black below).
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
All of those were suspended in winter except for East St Louis (BLV) and Cincinnati, but they were joined by the blue cities of Appleton, Des Moines, and Nashville. Everything will come back next summer except for Houston in black. But now, with this latest announcement, there are five new green markets joining the party: Huntsville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Omaha, and Springfield (MO).
This is still small potatoes in the scheme of things with an average of just over 4 daily flights, but the airline has also only a few previous months of actual data. I’m sure that the combination of Allegiant’s passenger driving data on the VPS flights plus this past summer’s performance, it has found more opportunities to just keep pumping up GUF further.
It may not be on my list to visit, but it seems like there are plenty who disagree with me. And Allegiant seems ready to take advantage of that.
Updated 11/26 to include PFN airport before ECP opened
