BLV applied again for the small community air service development program grant.
Everything is directly from the application except the last part with my thoughts
They are asking for 490K to add a base and eight new routes.
BLV is up to 4.1% of the PDEW market share in the region.
Targeted routes are the same as last year but have added Austin and apparently New Orleans.
It is a tad confusing in the wording.
Map - SNA/LAX (no MSY)
Text - LAX/MSY (no SNA)
Aircraft usage chart - has all of them
So I don't know if it is LAX and SNA as one or what it should be because it lists 8 destinations throughout.
Full list - AUS/BWI/EWR/DEN/OAK/LAX/SNA/SAN/MSY
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The Airport envisions the base evolving over time. Initially, one aircraft would be based at MidAmerica St. Louis. In the second year of the base, it is anticipated Allegiant would base a second aircraft at the Airport. Using the first aircraft, Allegiant could add service to four initial markets: Baltimore, Denver, Los Angeles, and Newark. In this scenario, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Newark would each be served three times per week, while Denver would be served twice per week.
The based aircraft could also help Allegiant expand service to existing markets. There would be enough aircraft time available for Allegiant to add a third weekly trip to Las Vegas with the first aircraft, even after adding four new nonstop markets (refer to the red highlighted frequencies in chart 9).
In all, the one based aircraft would grow MidAmerica St. Louis Airport’s weekly departures by 12 flights, or 25% (refer to chart 9). With just one based aircraft added to current schedules, MidAmerica St. Louis would see 60 departures per week, with as many as 10 daily departures on peak days, including Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.
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A second based aircraft would allow Allegiant to add four more nonstop markets. The second aircraft could be used to add flights to Austin, New Orleans, Oakland, and San Diego (refer to the red highlighted frequencies chart 10). Austin could be served three times per week while all other markets are served twice per week. The second based aircraft would add another 11 departures per week, and bring total nonstop cities served from MidAmerica St. Louis Airport to 20. That service pattern would provide substantial, coast-to-coast competition to the carriers serving Lambert Airport resulting in lower fares.
With two based aircraft, Allegiant would grow MidAmerica St. Louis Airport’s weekly departures by 23 flights, or 48% (refer to chart 10 on the previous page). With both based aircraft added to current schedules, MidAmerica St. Louis would see 73 departures per week, with as many as 12 daily departures on the peak days of Thursday and Sunday.
Many of these routes have a relatively long length-of-haul making them difficult to operate with crew restrictions that some low cost airlines have. For example, Allegiant does not overnight crews at outstations – all crews end their duty day back at their base. From a base like Los Angeles, a crew could fly two roundtrips on shorter west coast routes, rather than one roundtrip to St. Louis. But with a St. Louis base, crews could be mixed across the St. Louis network with more flexibility, making the cost of operating longer routes less prohibitive.
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Breakdown of money
Start up costs 300K
Advertising/Marketing 350K
Total 650k (160k from local, 490k from grant)
The Airport and its partners have already started discussions with Allegiant about the potential to develop a base at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport and about the targeted expansion. The Airport has met, in person, with Allegiant planners four times in the last nine months. It also conducts a weekly call with Allegiant representatives to discuss ongoing expansion plans in the St. Louis market.
Because Allegiant is familiar with the business plan, the Airport anticipates completing an agreement for additional service by the fall of 2022 (refer to chart 13). The Airport is targeting spring of 2023 as a start date for the first new route launch, with more new routes being rolled out over a period of two years. On this timeline, the Airport would close this Grant award by spring of 2025.
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An Allegiant letter of support is included.
Side thought by me: They play this thing out smartly, assuming it was on purpose. They did a good job looking at qualifications and present the data accordingly. On average fare they lumped themselves in with STL to make it look like fares are high as a region (instead just showing BLVs lower fares) and this would help bring them down. They have a chart showing available seats and the back half of the year it looks like STL has a huge dip. The dip is because Southwest's schedule isn't loaded yet.
I don't know if they will get it but for the amount they are asking and what comes of it, to me its a lot better than some airport asking for a million dollars to get a once daily flight that probably isn't going to come anyway.
