Fresno ticket sales spur Allegiant to expand flights to Hawaii

May 15--Allegiant Air's new nonstop flights between Fresno and Honolulu won't begin until the end of June, but ticket sales have been brisk enough to prompt the company to add more flights later this year.

Allegiant announced Monday that it will offer a second weekly flight to Hawaii from Fresno starting in November. The company is now accepting reservations on its website -- allegiantair.com -- for the new flights.

"Sales on our flights from Fresno to Hawaii have been a great success, as we anticipated," said Brian Davis, Allegiant's director of communications. "So we're adding another weekly flight, and adding four more cities that will have direct flights to Hawaii."

Allegiant began selling tickets last month for nonstop flights from Fresno and Las Vegas to Honolulu. The first flight from Hawaii will land at Fresno Yosemite International Airport on June 30, with the first departure to Honolulu on July 1. Service between Honolulu and Las Vegas will begin a day earlier.

Starting in mid-November, Davis said, the company will offer flights arriving in Fresno from Honolulu on Friday and Sunday evenings; departures to Honolulu will be Saturday and Monday mornings.

Also in November, Allegiant will begin offering once-weekly flights to Honolulu from Stockton, Santa Maria and Eugene, Ore. Two weekly flights to Honolulu, and two weekly flights to Maui, will be offered from Bellingham, Wash.

"We knew this would be our process as we add to our fleet," Davis said.

The company will use 223-seat Boeing 757-200 long-range jets for its flights over the Pacific Ocean, rather than the Boeing MD-80 medium-range jets it uses for most of its flights, including its Fresno-to-Las Vegas route.

Allegiant offers no-frills flights, which the company says enables it to charge lower basic fares. The trade-off, however, is that the company charges for a range of services once taken for granted by travelers, including for booking reservations online or over the phone, for preferred boarding or for choosing seats. The airline also charges baggage fees not only for checked luggage, but for carry-on bags.

The reporter can be reached at(559) 441-6319, [email protected] or @tsheehan on Twitter.

Copyright 2012 - The Fresno Bee, Calif.