Allegiant Airlines - An Acquired Taste

I used to live in Knoxville and my grandchildren still live there.  So when my schedule opened up I decided to make a quick trip up there.

So, I chose Allegiant out of Clearwater/St. Pete (PIE)

It had nothing to do with money, but rather nonstop flights.

Allegiant has a big operation out of Vegas, and a smaller one out of some Florida cities.

I would never book a business trip with these guys as they are too small and have no Plan B possibilities.

Here's what I did learn. You have to be very careful when buying a ticket on their website.  Their prices are the most unbundled I've ever run into.  Also, their site is defaulted to buy TWO tickets, so please pay attention!

The basic fare is cheap, but you have to pay additional fees for:

Assigned seating
Checked baggage
Carry on baggage (other than one personal item, which in my case was a backpack and that's all I took)

Here's what's interesting about their "unassigned seating concept". If you allow their system to assign seating for you, then you can bet you will get at least one middle seat.  I had an aisle on the trip up to TYS, and a middle seat back to PIE.  So I coughed up $15.00 to get a better window seat.  All done when you check in online.

This is the way to go for tourists.  In fact, I learned that over 24,000 people fly between St. Pete and Knoxville each year.  (note to the mayor of St. Pete Beach: I voted for you because I know you are going to preserve our quaint little place and not allow more hotels).  So I dutifully sat in two MD83s loaded to the hilt with east Tennessee tourists.  Thanks for leaving your money here in Florida folks!

On to Chicago.  Delta, no lowball unbundled carrier for this next one.


http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAY832/history/20140423/1330Z/KPIE/KTYS

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAY833/history/20140425/1835Z/KTYS/KPIE

Postcript to the above post, written 3 days later:

I noticed that today Allegiant's flight to Knoxville ran an astounding 5 HOURS LATE.  Meaning, imagine all the tourists sitting up in east Tennessee losing 5 hours of their precious vacation time waiting on this A320 to arrive and then return them to PIE.

You get what you pay for in air travel.  Allegiant has no plan B.