Wilfortina

Yeah, sounds like it might be that way in a lot of bases at allegiant. Movement seems hard to come by unless there’s expansion?


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ecam

A down turn is coming. That's not sky is falling thats being realistic. If you read the other airlines on this site you will see most have stopped or slowed hiring. Nobody really knows what 2019 is going to bring but global commerce is slowing and consumer confidence is falling. Investors are selling. Today the Dow is reaching correction territory. The airlines usually lead the charge into a recession. The only thing helping right now is low oil prices but if that spikes all bets are off.

We may gripe about what management is doing but its probably a good thing to tighten the belt now. As asinine as it is the fun centers will probably make money. The resort is probably going to be a money pit if it even gets built at this point. That aside allegiant is probably well positioned to weather the downturn. Most of our planes are still paid for and can be parked for little cost. They can fly the crap out of the new/leased ones around the clock with even more redeyes and more than cover the payments. People are still going to take vacations but they will be scaling back and looking for cheaper tickets. Other airlines that have been buying back stock and spending like drunk sailors for a decade won't do as well. I wouldn't want to be at the bottom of a list right now at a legacy airline.

9easy

Management is not tightening the budget, the lack of growth is purely due to lack of used A320 frames because of the A320NEO delay. If Summerlin could get used A320's for a reasonable price we would easily have 20-30 more frames this year and be hiring rapidly.

The most important thing any strong management team can do is #1 not lose money, and #2 asymmetrical risk. #1 - Currently ALGT has not "lost money" but debt and capital has been spent that is not currently producing any income. More importantly #2 - The company is venturing into businesses where they have no core competency. Forgetting about the fun centers for now, the Florida real estate project is already flashing warning signs. The original plan was to sell condos, now it will be a hotel. These will be relatively expensive hotels, yet the company will not advertise these rooms on any travel websites, and expects to sell them all via allegiant.com. All of this, at the top of a real estate and economic cycle. Although pilots are usually poor with all things to do economic wise, one thing we all realize is history repeats itself... and the cycle by all accounts, is towards the end. One of the things that does the worst in a downturn is Florida real estate, and high end vacation travel.

Anyone who puts blind trust in the current plan is whistling through the graveyard. Can things work out great? Sure. But it's much more likely things will turn out poorly. For the pilots, the worst case is the company will become insolvent and the airline side will be sold off to the highest bidder and hopefully pilots will retain some semblance of seniority. On the best side, the airline will become a small part of an overall travel empire and will be a continued target of cost reduction.

Releasemaster

As someone that is not very in-depth with the markets, what signs are you seeing that indicate a turn in the economy? Not bashing, just trying to understand.

ecam

I guess its gut instinct after living through 6+ down turn cycles. Do you watch the news?

disco inferno

What was it like to live with all of those dinosaurs running around?

ecam

Well there was no internet so the youngsters whined all the time about being bored...

disco inferno

Where did you go for a safe space back then? Did they have hot chocolate and crayons for when you felt triggered?

ecam

We just beat the hell out of them. Society was a lot tougher back then. You had to be. Wussies didn't last long in Nam.

disco inferno

Rayyyycisss Nazi!!!!!