CORONAVIRUS

Allegiant Air keeping Springfield route

Brenden Moore
bmoore@sj-r.com
A jet flown by Allegiant is parked at the terminal at Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport.

Allegiant Air’s seasonal service out of Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport won’t be departing the Springfield market anytime soon.

The Nevada-based budget airline provides twice-weekly service between Springfield and Punta Gorda, Fla., a popular destination for leisure travelers and snowbirds in central Illinois.

While a report last week included Springfield on a list of cities Allegiant was seeking to cut service, airline officials and the Springfield Airport Authority clarified that the flight status was seasonal.

Officials said the airline received an exemption from the U.S. Department of Transportation that will allow it to put the Springfield route on the hiatus it typically takes in mid-August and September while still being eligible for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds.

Unless granted exemptions, airlines receiving taxpayer funds are required to maintain a minimum level of service to the markets they serve.

“While the DOT established a threshold level of service for airlines receiving CARES Act support, it didn’t take into consideration our historical service patterns, which are very seasonal,” said Allegiant spokeswoman Sonya Padgett. “We requested, and were granted, a waiver so that we could have some flexibility in certain cities, including Springfield, to operate under the DOT minimum requirements from time to time.”

Mark Hanna, executive director of the Springfield Airport Authority, characterized it as “a technical thing.”

He said Punta Gorda was “a very, very popular local leisure destination.”

More than 34,000 utilized the route in 2019, according to the Springfield Airport Authority.

The Springfield airport also has daily service from American Airlines to Dallas-Fort Worth and United Airlines to Chicago.

Passenger numbers at the airport totaled 155,764 in 2019, a slight dip from 158,406 in 2018 and 187,977 in 2017, according to airport authority numbers. The airport hit a 12-year high of nearly 192,000 in 2016.

Hanna said it’s been a tough few months for the airline industry, and Springfield is not immune.

“We've seen a huge dip in traffic and it's pretty much lockstep with what we've seen across the country,” he said.

American, which typically offers two daily flights between Springfield and Dallas, has temporarily cut back to one during the month of June.

United in recent months has combined its Springfield and Decatur routes to Chicago, with capital city passengers flying non-stop to Chicago but having a 30 minute layover in Decatur before returning to Springfield.

Hanna said it was one of the “creative solutions” airlines have come up with to maintain routes will waiting for demand to return.

“There's many, many other situations around the country where they're having these flag stops and tagging cities just to keep service viable and going because quite frankly, no one wants to see a company flying around empty airplanes and taking taxpayer money and then end up going broke here at the end of the late fall,” Hanna said.

In the meantime, Hanna said the airport was taking advantage of the downtime to get its capital improvements done.

Among the improvements are an expanded area for passenger security checks, a new façade on much of the terminal, some heated sidewalks to keep snow and ice at bay, and an expanded hallway to the baggage claim area.

Additional roadway and parking improvements are also in progress.

Contact Brenden Moore: 788-1526, bmoore@sj-r.com, twitter.com/brendenmoore13.

2019 Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport passengers by the numbers

United: 61,255American: 54,968Allegiant: 34,255Charter/Honor flights: 5,286Total: 155,764

*Source: The Springfield Airport Authority

Passengers from a returning American Airlines flight make their way through the terminal at Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport Friday, June 5, 2020.