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27.07.2023 - 18:14 / smartertravel.com / Allegiant Air
Have you questioned flying Southwest since its deadly engine failure made headlines this spring? The incident might have overshadowed a watershed safety moment for another low-cost airline—one that’s long faced questions about its safety: Allegiant Air.
A recent 60 Minutes special rekindled questions around Allegiant’s incident record, following a 2016 report that found Allegiant’s aircraft were four times as likely to fail during flight as those operated by other major U.S. airlines. 60 Minutes did a deep dive on the airline’s safety record since then, and found little has changed.
Related:Allegiant Air’s Planes Are 4 Times More Likely to Fail Is Allegiant Air Safe?The crux of 60 Minutes’ findings is this:
The airline has had “persistent problems since at least the summer of 2015,” the report adds, “when it experienced a rash of mid-air breakdowns, including five on a single day.”
A Pattern of ProblemsWhat makes the Allegiant situation more notable, however, is that we aren’t talking about a short period of time. As 60 Minutes notes, the carrier has had persistent, consistent safety and maintenance difficulties for years.
All airlines experience occasional, isolated mechanical issues. Sometimes even a spate of problems in a row—Southwest, for example, had a rough stretch this spring with multiple, newsworthy incidents over a short period of time. The Tampa Bay Times’ bombshell reporting on Allegiant’s maintenance record, though, came out in November 2016, and we’re still talking about what appear to be systemic problems.
Related: The Best Airlines of 2018 According to J.D. PowerJust this week, an Allegiant Air flight made an emergency landing due to smoke in the cabin. This followed another emergency landing in May due to an “electrical smell.” And that followed another in April due to a faulty sensor. And there was yet another in April.
In a statement to 60 Minutes, Allegiant’s Vice President of Operations, Captain Eric Gust, said: “All of us at Allegiant are proud of our strong safety record, as noted in the most current, comprehensive FAA audit. We not only comply with all mandatory safety regulations and guidelines, but also participate in numerous voluntary safety programs. Simply stated, safety is at the forefront of our minds and the core of our operations.”
It’s worth noting that this response differs from Allegiant’s in 2016, when Allegiant CEO Maurice Gallagher Jr. said the company would be “focused on running a better operation.”
Out with the Old60 Minutes suggests these problems are the result of the way Allegiant runs its business: “The business strategy which has produced 60 straight quarters of profits, occasionally with margins approaching 30 percent, requires the airline to
Breeze Airways is looking ahead to colder weather with one-way fall and winter flights starting at just $39.
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