With a fleet of 117 Airbus A320 family aircraft, budget operator Allegiant adheres quite closely to the low-cost carrier playbook. The airline has a reasonably uniform fleet, allowing for cost savings in terms of crew training and aircraft maintenance. Founded in 1998, the airline continues to grow its fleet and expand its services - and will do so with the acquisition of more jets in the near future. Let's take a look at the Allegiant Air fleet.

The Allegiant fleet at a glance

Let's first take a look at the composition of the airline's fleet as a whole. The short list of aircraft types are listed below with quantities in parentheses:

  • Airbus A319-100 (35)
  • Airbus A320-200 (82)

As you can see from this extremely short list, Allegiant Air has an extremely homogenous fleet based on the Airbus A320 family of aircraft. These single-aisle twinjets collectively have an average age of nearly 15 years. However, when broken down further, the A319s average age is a little over 16 years while the A320 average age is closer to 14.

As you would expect, seating is fairly basic, with all aircraft set up to have a single class, all-economy layout. Allegiant's A319s are configured with 156 seats, while A320s surprisingly have two configurations. This would reflect the airline's explanation on its website:

"Allegiant is a leisure airline equipped with an all-coach configuration.  For your comfort, on select flights, Allegiant Extra and Legroom+ seating options are available for purchase."

Seatguru.com notes that the airline's 177-seat A320s offer 18 "Legroom+" seats and 159 standard seats. Interestingly, the seat-map-focused website doesn't show an additional configuration for Allegiant's 186-seat A320s, although we would presume this higher density means fewer extra-legroom seats.

Allegiant Air Airbus A319-111 N315NV
Allegiant has 35 Airbus A319s. These jets are some of the airline's oldest, with an average of 16 years. The oldest A319 is almost 18 years. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

More A320s inbound

According to ch-aviation.com, Allegiant is expecting another 10 Airbus A320s in the future. Diving deeper into the data, it appears that at least seven of these narrowbodies will come from Alaska Airlines - a carrier whose fleet we covered recently.

Indeed, in the Alaska Airlines fleet article, we discussed how the carrier has been working towards a transition to an all-Boeing fleet recently. In November of 2020, the airline announced a transaction that would lead to a lease-swap of 10 Airbus A320ceos for 13 new Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft from Air Lease Corporation.

Looking at the ownership data of Allegiant's incoming A320s, it seems like these aircraft are, in fact, owned by Air Lease Corporation and previously flew with Alaska Airlines.

Allegiant Air Airbus A320-214 N240NV
Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

The somewhat recent acquisition of these jets appeared to be an opportunistic move, given the turmoil faced by the aviation industry, particularly last year. In a May 2020 conference call, this is how Allegiant's leadership described its fleet expansion plan:

“It’s my belief we will begin to see numbers of older 320s and 319s [and] their motors available as part [of] opportunities in the not-too-distant future, and prices will begin to react accordingly. Furthermore, we will be one of the few players, I believe, in the market with the wherewithal to purchase these assets.” -Maury Gallagher, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Allegiant Air via Motley Fool

Given the surge in new bookings and pent-up demand experienced in recent months, it looks like Allegiant's bet paid off.

Have you flown on the Las Vegas-based airline recently? Share your experience of the airline by leaving a comment.