Allegiant Air announces reduction of service from Santa Maria to Las Vegas
SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- Allegiant Air has announced it is reducing service from Santa Maria to Las Vegas starting later this month.
The airline will no longer provide Wednesday flights from the Santa Maria Public Airport (SMX) to Harry Reid International Airport after April 20.
"For the months of June, July and August our Wednesday flights look to be going away to Las Vegas," said SMX General Manager Chris Hastert. "We'll still be at two days a week on Fridays and Sundays."
Hastert added the airport received the news on Tuesday and attributed the cancellations to an ongoing shortage of pilots and staffing, which is impacting the entire airline industry.
"This is a factor of the industry right now with crew shortages," said Hastert. "It's not just pilots. It's flight attendants, pilots, even getting down into mechanics and other things, so it's hard to keep all of the airplanes ready to go, including pilots to fly them."
Allegiant has cancelled all Wednesday flights through September, but will still provide service from SMX to Las Vegas on Fridays and Sundays.
The cancellation of the flight comes as the worst possible time, just the busy travel season is all set to begin.
"This time of the year, typically in non-pandemic years, our flights would go up to four, sometimes five flights a week during the summer," said Hastert. "It's definitely our peak season. A lot of people looking to go have some fun in Vegas, maybe visit some family, or have family come out here to visit them, and so obviously a lot of those plans are changing currently."
The Las Vegas-based company is currently the only airline providing service from SMX.
Allegiant recently stopped seasons flights from Santa Maria to Portland, and will discontinue flights to Mesa, Arizona next week on April 24.
"It's very difficult," said Hastert. "We look to meet with Allegiant and see if the seasonal service comes back or when that might be, but obviously this issue compounds that discussion."
Hastert pointed that despite the loss of the Wednesday route and the other two seasonal flights, the overall health of the airport remains strong.
"Santa Maria Airport is still doing well," said Hastert. "We have very diverse revenue coming in, so we're here in the long run. Unfortunately, as one of our consultants that works for us says, it's a marathon, not just a race."
He added that he, along with other airport and city and airport representatives, continue their efforts to add commercial service.
"We're prepared to continue pushing for better service," said Hastert. "We monitor the situation with the airline industry all of the time, so we've overcome it once. We had the service announced and the pandemic messed that up, now oil prices, pilot shortages. All of that factors in, gate availability at hub airports. There's just a lot of different factors, but we're very confident in the next couple of years we'll be back to announce some new service again."
