Ben Mutzabaugh

USA TODAY

Budget carrier Allegiant is ready to take on New York City.



The fast-growing leisure airline has gained access to capacity-choked Newark Liberty International Airport, where Allegiant believes it can stimulate new passenger traffic by offering fares as low as $39.



“We anticipate Newark to be a leisure destination,” Lukas Johnson, Allegiant’s Vice President of Planning, says in a phone interview with Today in the Sky.

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“We think we provide something really unique. At Newark, we’ll be the first ULCC,” he says, referring to the “ultra low-cost carrier” label for no-frills budget carriers Allegiant, Spirit and Frontier.

Newark is one of three new destinations joining Allegiant’s route map as part of a 12-route expansion announced Tuesday. The airline also is expanding to Denver and the U.S. border town of Ogdensburg, N.Y. When service to the new cities begins, Allegiant will fly to 117 destinations – all in the United States.



But it's Allegiant’s entrance to Newark that’s the big news from Tuesday’s expansion news.



Newark Liberty is one of the three big New York City-area airports, but access for “new entrant” carriers has been virtually impossible in recent years. That changed in April when the Federal Aviation Administration announced it would ease “slot” restrictions at Newark for flights after Oct. 30.

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Already, low-cost carrier JetBlue has announced new Newark flights, shifting six existing Florida flights to Newark from New York LaGuardia. That shift allowed JetBlue to add Boston flights from LaGuardia, where more-stringent slot restrictions remain in effect.



But Allegiant will become the first entirely new U.S. airline to add Newark service following the loosening of the capacity controls there.

Even so, it was still a bit of a challenge for Allegiant to worm its way into the lineup at Newark.

“Gates are at a premium,” Johnson says, adding that it required careful maneuvering to find space in the flight schedules at the congested airport .

“The afternoons and evenings are still very constrained at Newark,” but Allegiant’s “flexible” leisure-focused schedule allowed the carrier to find available time slots, Johnson says.

Allegiant will begin service there on Nov. 16, launching nonstop service to Cincinnati and Savannah. Allegiant adds two more routes on Nov. 17 with flights to Asheville, N.C., and Knoxville, Tenn.

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“We’re just going to have two arrivals and departures per day, and that’s mixed across four markets,”’ Johnson says. “We wanted to make sure we could create a robust schedule ... rather than just trying to do a land grab, which I think is what people have traditionally done in these congested airports.”

That limited type of schedule also mirrors Allegiant’s strategy across the rest of its network, where it typically offers only a few flights a week between most destinations.

Allegiant will fly from Newark to Cincinnati and Asheville four times each week and to Knoxville and Savannah three times a week. Still, even that schedule represents a higher-than-normal frequency for one of Allegiant’s new markets.

“Three- and four-a-week is big for Allegiant, but it’s the New York metro area and we believe we’ll fill those seats up,” Johnson says. “This is the biggest market in the country. Certainly it’s the largest tourism market – the most-visited metro region in the country. There’s going to be excess demand at the price point we’re going to be offering.”

Allegiant's initial one-way fares will start at $39 to Cincinnati and Savannah and at $41 to Asheville and Knoxville, though those prices don't include Allegiant's $8 per passenger fee for credit card purchases. Fliers can avoid that fee by using a debit card.

While Allegiant will be the first so-called ULCC at Newark, Spirit and Frontier each fly from New York LaGuardia.

Allegiant’s debut at its two other new destinations will have a different feel.

From Denver, Allegiant will fly to Montrose Regional Airport near the western Colorado ski resort of Telluride. The twice-weekly flights will cater to the ski crowd, beginning Dec. 14 and running through March 25.

Perhaps more interesting for Allegiant is Ogdensburg, where the carrier is expanding to yet another city on the U.S.-Canada border.

Allegiant will fly from Ogdensburg to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando-Sanford. It’s part of a broader strategy to court bargain-seeking Canadians willing to drive across the border to snag domestic U.S. fares that can be dramatically cheaper than on international itineraries from Canada.

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Ogdensburg is about 60 miles south of downtown Ottawa, the Canadian capital city that boasts a metro population of about 1.2 million. The far-western suburbs of Montreal – Canada’s second biggest metro area – are about 100 miles away.

“Certainly we anticipate a lot of Canadians that have had historically high fares in Ottawa will be interested in the service,” Johnson says.

The company flies to nine other cities where Canadian customers represent a significant portion of its customer base. Among those are Plattsburgh, N.Y.; Bellingham, Wash.; and Minot, N.D.

Elsewhere, Allegiant will add five additional routes that further connect the dots between cities it already serves. Among those are three new routes to its focus cities in California. Also in the mix are two new routes from Florida, including a nonstop route from Destin/Fort Walton Beach to the carrier’s base in Las Vegas.

A common theme on some of those routes is that Allegiant is looking to add nonstop service between cities that have few direct connections. Johnson singled out Allegiant’s new Oakland-El Paso route as an example.

“El Paso’s got a metro area of almost a million people, and there’s no nonstop service to the Bay Area – not even to SFO (San Francisco International),” he says. “To us, not only is it underserved from a low-cost price-point, it’s underserved completely."

Beyond the new routes, Allegiant also is moving to increase service on three existing seasonal routes.

Allegiant’s nonstop service between Los Angeles and Missoula, Mont., will become year-round. Two other seasonal routes from Destin/Fort Walton Beach – Cincinnati and MidAmerica St. Louis – will be extended through January. Johnson told Today in the Sky that Allegiant’s Baltimore/Washington-Asheville service also will switch from seasonal to year-round, though that route was not included in Tuesday’s announcement.

Scroll down for a complete list of the 12 new Allegiant routes revealed Tuesday.

To/from Newark Liberty

- Asheville: Begins Nov. 17. Four weekly flights (Tuesday , Thursday, Saturday, Sunday)

- Cincinnati: Begins Nov. 16. Four weekly flights (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday)

- Knoxville: Begins Nov. 17. Three weekly flights (Tuesday, Thusday, Sunday)

- Savannah/Hilton Head: Begins Nov. 16. Three weekly flights (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

To/from Ogdensburg, N.Y.

- Fort Lauderdale: Begins Oct. 7.Two weekly flights (Thursday and Sunday; Eventually shifts to Wednesday and Saturday)

- Orlando-Sanford: Begins Oct. 6. Two weekly flights (Wednesday and Saturday)

To/from Denver

- Montrose/Telluride, Colo.: Begins Dec. 14 and runs through March 25. Two weekly flights (Wednesday and Saturday)

To/from Punta Gorda, Fla.

- Concord/Charlotte, N.C. Begins Oct. 5. Three weekly flights (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

To/from Los Angeles

- Albuquerque, N.M.: Begins Oct. 6. Two weekly flights (Thursday and Sunday)

To/from Oakland

- El Paso: Begins Oct. 6. Two weekly flights (Monday and Thursday)

To/from San Diego

- Provo, Utah: Sept. 28. Two weekly flights. (Thursday and Sunday)

To/from Las Vegas

- Destin/Fort Walton Beach, Fla.: Begins Oct. 7. Two weekly flights. (Monday and Friday)

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