2008 has been a funny year so far for a lot of airlines. When aloha and ata decided to shut down, allegiant air thought it was high time to do something, and viola! We have an allegiant airline doing an overshot of the runway at Fort-Collins airport. Thankfully, there was no injury aboard or on ground, but the incident was hilarious, finding place on all the evening bulletins and well as aviation news blogs. Where to some it merely indicated a funny bone, a lot of people took it seriously, commenting on the seriousness of the situation as well as the fact that the flight was capable of causing excessive fatalities and that this was indeed a careless move on the part of the pilot.
This low cost airline is often found in hilarious situations. Another one occurred about 2 months back when about 25 passengers were awe struck, when their scheduled allegiant airline took off in front of them while they were being checked in. The speakers at allegiant airlines told them that they were responsible for being late. Jokes apart, such an attitude is not liked by passengers anywhere, and massively contributes to negative publicity. Stuck in Alabama, the passengers stood on the ground while their luggage flew away in front of their eyes. They had to make arrangements for collection of the luggage too. In a world as busy as ours, one manages to spare a day or 2 of vacation with great difficulty and the days as well as money being wasted in such a manner by an airline like the allegiant air, is indeed a catastrophe. If the spokesperson would have reimbursed the fare, the news would have been taken in good spirit. As it is, the news was received with shock at the insensitiveness of the party responsible. No one from allegiant airlines agreed to their mistake, and the fact that the flight attendant who did not handle the passengers and checking-in has been ignored by all. In the long run, these things matter in a way people don’t realize. Companies gain good name over decades, but can lose it in a day. This is the reason why other airlines forced allegiant airline to accept its mistake and apologize. However allegiant refused to do anything of the sort or even reimburse the payment. An airline of a stature comparable to that of allegiant airlines should not have gone for this. IT was not as if the airline was in dire need of that much money. People all over have condemned this action. The fact that its destinations are small secondary airports is probably the reason why it has not been given the attitude so far.
Allegiant had been initially promoting itself as a house package vacation vendor. The fact that the destinations of allegiant air lines included secondary airports also meant more arrangements with hotel properties in smaller cities and vacation spots. The allegiant air lines basically have collaborations with over 45 hotel properties in vacation destinations. However, one mistake allegiant did was introducing the airfare and the hotel accommodations as a deal, not purchasable singularly.
Throughout the US allegiant airlines have about 60 destinations, and this stint was clearly something allegiant air did not need.
Another new spectacular act being pulled by allegiant airlines is catching on their passengers unannounced. This May also reported an email coming from allegiant air, changing the scheduled flight of a passenger to 22 hours earlier. On further inquiry, the airline refused to budge from the decision, or reschedule or reimburse the fare. Clearly someone is not thinking in the airline company. The PR protocol of allegiant air lines needs to be redone on an extensive scale.
