ramalama

As crazy as it sounds, based on Allegiants model only, not other airlines, I am thinking from Memorial Day to Labor Day the average load factors as far as Florida, Arizona, and Las Vegas will be in the mid 70s with a trailing mid 80s towards the end. As soon as the strip and theme parks are open with a little lead in for phasing of opening, people are gonna want to get away and have some fun. Just read any forum, comments to articles etc. People are tired of being pent up and want to normalize (in general). Yes unemployment went crazy, but it will only have been for a short time and a lot of people are making more money staying home anyways with the stimulus.
The kicker to all this is that Allegiants payroll has been paid up thru September 30 so when load factors get up there, they are making gravy on those flights.
Now come next winter......who knows.

What do you think?

Beretta01

I could see it. It sounds like the reopening of Disney and the other parks is imminent with 50% reduced capacity during this “phase 1 re-opening” in Florida. Obviously, that’s huge news for SFB. FL just opened the beaches, restaurants(reduced capacity), retailers(also reduced capacity), parks, etc(no bars though) which will certainly help get PIE, PGD, VPS back in the swing of things.

KIGECA97531

If Allegiant follows the social distancing trend the other airlines are doing they could block all the middle seats and still make money. What is that about 56 seats blocked on a 320? I doubt the legacy carriers can survive long term like that unless they greatly raise fares. I agree people are going to want to travel ASAP. I think the company will be okay by the end of the summer. Management isn't panicking, they're buying.

tailendcharlie

I don’t know about blocking middle seats long-term.....pretty hard to envision anything close to a robust airline industry with permanent 60% load factors. If that’s the new norm I think the federal government is going ti have to get into the airline biz.

Itsajob

No they won’t, the airlines will just price the remaining seats accordingly. Raise the rent, fewer people travel, and the airline industry is just much smaller. It would be like the days before deregulation. Air travel would be for the coat and tie crowd. This is exactly why social distancing won’t happen once the loads are back up. If the government did get involved, massive bureaucracy would make this industry so messed up that it would be far worse. Just look at how the USPS is run vs UPS if you want an example of government run vs private sector.

akulahunter

Obviously only a few segments a day right now, but flights are already going out full with people in the middle seats. The public, especially the leisure crowd, will fly again sooner rather than later (maybe with masks for a while). Humans have a short memory. Two years from now (or hopefully sooner) you won't hear any more about "The 'Rona" than you do SARS or Ebola.