Allegiant Grows as It Marks 10 Years of Serving Pittsburgh

On the morning of Feb. 7, Allegiant Air and Pittsburgh International Airport celebrated the airline’s inaugural flight to Phoenix with a gate event featuring cactus-themed balloons, cookies and airport-branded items. Excited passengers took part in the festivities before boarding the Airbus A320 taking them from a cold, windy Pittsburgh to Arizona’s heat and sunshine.

Allegiant is offering promotional $65 fares on select dates for its new seasonal Pittsburgh-Phoenix route – scheduled to operate twice a week through May.

“We are excited to begin connecting Phoenix and Pittsburgh with Allegiant’s unique brand of ultra-low-cost, all-nonstop flights,” said Drew Wells, Allegiant’s Chief Commercial Officer. “This addition, part of a larger milestone expansion for Allegiant, will connect more passengers to the people and places they love.”

The launch of Pittsburgh-Phoenix service comes as Allegiant marks 10 years of service at PIT this month. Allegiant began scheduled service at PIT in February 2015 and was the airport’s first ultra-low-cost carrier (ULCC) – a key addition that began a wave of ULCCs (Frontier Airlines in 2016, Spirit Airlines in 2017 and Sun Country Airlines in 2022) entering the Pittsburgh market.

Allegiant has been one of PIT’s fastest-growing airlines within the past decade, growing to 14 nonstop destinations, the second most of any airline at the airport. Since starting service in 2015, Allegiant has flown nearly 3.2 million passengers at PIT.

Welcoming Allegiant was one of PIT’s first major events under CEO Christina Cassotis, who was just weeks into her job when the airline and airport celebrated the carrier’s first flights from Pittsburgh.

“When Allegiant started serving Pittsburgh, it really paved the way for our current air service diversification strategy of generating more nonstop flights and lowering airfares for the region,” Cassotis said. “Allegiant’s growth and success in Pittsburgh over the last 10 years shows the tremendous response from our community for more air service this region has long wanted. We are grateful for Allegiant’s partnership and investment in Pittsburgh during the past decade.”

Allegiant operates a network of point-to-point service to leisure markets – bypassing major connecting hubs often in favor of smaller, convenient secondary airports. Allegiant also allows travelers to bundle air travel, hotel, rental car and even activity and attraction reservations together to save money.

In the last 10 years, Allegiant has added service from PIT to airports near major markets like Orlando-Sanford, Punta Gorda and St. Petersburg-Clearwater. It also added service to previously underserved markets popular with Pittsburghers like Jacksonville, Myrtle Beach, Sarasota, Savannah and West Palm Beach. And Allegiant has added markets such as Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Key West and Melbourne-Orlando that were never served even during the airport’s hub days. It also has capitalized on growing tourism markets in Austin and Nashville, where it provides ULCC competition.

Rhett Morgan, senior director of business development for the consulting firm Ailevon Pacific, said Allegiant has been strategic with the markets it has added in Pittsburgh.

“They’ve looked beyond traditional data at things like migration or second homes, what are the ties between folks in Pittsburgh and where maybe they haven’t had access to visit friends and relatives.”

Allegiant also has offered special flights acknowledging Pittsburghers’ passion for football, such as roundtrips to Las Vegas for Steelers fans during the 2023 National Football League season and Appleton, Wisconsin, this April for the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay.

Beyond flights, Allegiant has provided local aviation jobs. The carrier maintains a base at PIT with pilots, flight attendants and mechanics. And up to three Airbus A320 aircraft are stationed at the airport, depending on the season.

The base allows Allegiant to operate its PIT flights as an “out-and-back” so crews start and end their daytrips in Pittsburgh rather than overnight in other cities.

“The economic development and jobs are huge. But from an air service perspective with Allegiant basing aircraft, that opens up the type of markets and the destinations that they can serve because they don’t lay over their crews at night,” said Morgan. “It enables them to do much more and offer a much greater variety of markets from Pittsburgh.”

Basing crews and planes at PIT also enables Allegiant to operate scheduled charters to Cancun and Punta Cana on behalf of Apple Vacations and Vacation Express.

As for Allegiant’s future in Pittsburgh, more growth could be on the way. Allegiant is expanding and modernizing its fleet with the recent arrival of the Boeing 737 MAX. The airline has orders for up to 130 aircraft from Boeing.

“At the end of the day, Allegiant been successful because people in Pittsburgh have supported them,” said Morgan. “The community really drives air service… and the people in Pittsburgh have responded. Because of that, Allegiant has grown to what Pittsburgh has now.”