One-Way Tickets to Fla. $19: Allegiant Air has Slashed Prices

Dec. 21--Allegiant Air, the Las Vegas-based no-frills carrier that flies weekly from Roanoke to Florida, slashed its fares today on its flights to Orlando and the Tampa Bay area in attempts to stimulate leisure travel during one of its slow seasons. It is offering one-way tickets to Florida for $19.

The promotion, however, comes with a slew of restrictions: tickets must be purchased before Saturday, travel must be in January, and it only includes inbound flights to Florida. Return fares hover between $49 and $89, not including taxes or fees.

Even the advertisement, circulated by e-mail to only a few customers, specifies that "seats are extremely limited."

"If you've got flexibility in your travel schedule, you can get a killer deal," Allegiant spokeswoman Tyri Squyres said. The offer also comes on the heels of a dip in fares on flights to Florida in December, when some of the fares reached as low as $59 one-way, excluding taxes and fees. Many of those fares are no longer available.

Squyres cast aside any suggestion that this drastic drop in fares signaled a yellow flag for the fledgling leisure carrier, which first landed in Roanoke in May and two months later doubled its weekly service to Orlando. In September, it introduced service to St. Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport in the Tampa Bay area. The service launched in early December.

Nor was the warm weather in Roanoke a factor in the airline's decision to offer the promotion, Squyres added. The offer is also available in 20 other markets, including such far-flung places as Des Moines, Iowa and South Bend, Ind., she said.

The airline, rather, is hoping to get people thinking about traveling after the holidays.

"January is slow everywhere," said Roanoke airport spokeswoman Sherry Wallace. "Holiday breaks are over. Kids are back in school. Business stuff hasn't cranked back up yet. We don't get busy again until March or so."

In fact, Allegiant's approach is not that original, said airline consultant Robert Mann, president of the Port Washington, N.Y.-based R.W. Mann & Co.

He described the move as "seasonal pricing" and explained that the airline may be trying to move some of its passenger traffic from a time when it knows it'll be full to a period that isn't that full.

He also said a recent drop in jet fuel prices, the single largest expense for airlines, and in particular low-cost carriers such as Allegiant, may have helped push these temporary cheap fares into existence.

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