ALLEGIANT TRAVEL COMPANY FIRST QUARTER 2011 FINANCIAL RESULTS

Las Vegas, Nev., April 28, 2011 /GlobeNewswire/ – Allegiant Travel Company (NASDAQ: ALGT) today reported the following financial results for the 1st quarter 2011 and comparisons to prior year equivalents.

“We are very proud to report our 33rd consecutive profitable quarter,” stated Maurice J. Gallagher, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Allegiant Travel Company. “I especially want to thank our team members for their efforts. Their everyday efforts delivering our customers safely and reliably is critical to our continued success.

“Our 14.1% pre-tax margin is the 10th consecutive quarter in which we have achieved double digits. We are especially pleased about these results in light of the rapid increase in fuel prices we experienced during the quarter, in particular during the month of March, typically our most profitable month of the year.

“Our strong results are principally due to a 13.3% increase in scheduled service passenger RASM (PRASM) and an 11.4% increase in total scheduled service RASM (TRASM) compared with 1st quarter 2010. We believe our unit revenue gains are due to a stronger demand environment, changes in our pricing strategy and tactics, and our aggressive management of capacity in our network. During the quarter, our scheduled service ASM growth was only 2.7%, our slowest pace of year over year growth since the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2008.

“Our current capacity plans remain very constrained, all in an effort to manage through this period of rapid fuel price escalation. Once we believe fuel price increases begin to moderate, we expect to return our rate of growth to our historic norms,” concluded Gallagher.

Andrew C. Levy, President of Allegiant Travel Company, stated, “Our strategy of constraining capacity to respond to sharply rising jet fuel prices enabled us to offset most of the 14% increase in our average system jet fuel cost from the 4th quarter 2010 to the 1st quarter of 2011. We expect to continue to report substantial year over year unit revenue increases for the next few months. April PRASM is expected to increase between 22% and 24% and we expect a similar increase for the entire 2nd quarter of 2011.

“The total fare of $125 per passenger is the highest we have ever recorded, due mostly to a 9.3% increase in average air fare, but also due to a 33% increase in third party ancillary revenue per passenger. The improvement in net ancillary revenue was achieved through margin improvement and increased sales of hotel and transportation products,” concluded Levy.

Scott Sheldon, SVP and CFO of Allegiant Travel Company, stated, “Our CASM ex-fuel increased by 9.2% during the 1st quarter, in part due to a 5.9% reduction in aircraft utilization and a 1% decline in average stage length. We project an 8% decline in aircraft utilization for the 2nd quarter which will again put upward pressure on our CASM ex-fuel which is expected to increase by 23% to 25% in the 2nd quarter. We expect our full year 2011 CASM ex-fuel to increase between 10% and 12%.

“Apart from lower fleet utilization, we will see notable increases in salary and benefits and maintenance and repairs during the 2nd quarter 2011. Our pilot compensation agreement which took effect in May 2010 is driving the majority of the increase in salary and benefits, but the large year over year increases should start to moderate after this coming quarter once the agreement reaches its anniversary date in May.

“The projected increase in maintenance and repairs expense is due to a change in our MD-80 engine maintenance strategy. In recent years, we overhauled very few of our engines and instead replaced most engines when needing repair with engines acquired in the secondary market. This approach resulted in lower operating expenses but higher capital expenditures.

“In late 2010, we decided to alter our approach and now expect to manage our engines through a combination of performing service overhauls on some units and purchasing engines to replace others. We expect to recognize expenses of between $20 and $25 million in 2011 for the overhaul or repair of 30 – 35 MD-80 engines. We had initially planned to recognize the majority of these expenses during the first two quarters of 2011, but now expect most of these expenses to be recognized during the 2nd and 3rd quarters due to delays in the execution of our new engine overhaul services agreement. As a result, we expect maintenance and repairs expense per aircraft per month to be between $140,000 and $150,000 during the 2nd quarter and between $135,000 and $145,000 during the 3rd quarter. These are substantially higher than historical norms, but we believe this increase is largely non-recurring.

“Most importantly, the cash utilized in support of our MD-80 engine program – whether operating expenses or capital expenditures – was fairly consistent in 2009 and 2010 and we expect it to return to these levels in 2012 and beyond, adjusted for growth in fleet size. Please see the table below for more detailed information on this area.

“Our unrestricted cash (including short term investments) at the end of the 1st quarter 2011 was $305 million which was up from $150 million at the end of 2010. We spent $40 million in capital expenditures which included the purchase of two 757 aircraft. In March, we were successful in executing on a $125 million term loan. Some of the highlights of this transaction were:

- Issuance and corporate rating is BB- by Standard & Poor’s and Ba3 by Moody’s
- Interest rate of LIBOR + 425 bps with a LIBOR floor of 1.5%
- 6 year term with 1% annual amortization

“In addition, we raised $7 million of debt on one 757 aircraft. We also made approximately $16.2 million in principal payments on debt. Finally, we still have $46 million remaining under our share repurchase authority,” concluded Sheldon.

At this time, Allegiant Travel Company provides the following guidance to investors, subject to revision.

• An operating fleet of 51 MD-80 aircraft through the 2nd quarter of 2011.
• 2011 capital expenditures of approximately $100 million.

Allegiant Travel Company will host a conference call with analysts at 4:30 East Coast time today, April 28th, 2011, to discuss its 1st quarter 2011 financial results. A live broadcast of the conference call will be available via the Company’s Investor Relations website homepage at http://ir.allegiant.com. The webcast will also be archived in the “Events & Presentations” section of the website.