M. Wynn: "Wild Card" Aviation Photography & Images: Gallery Update: Allegiant 757 Charter Sighting!

About This Blog:

The primary purpose of this blog is to showcase the best of my aviation photography. As such, you will find links to my main aviation gallery on Facebook containing photos from aircraft spotting, some kind of aviation event such as air shows and fly-in events, as well as aviation museums. I also critique my flights on commercial airlines and the services they provide. Occassionally, you'll find personally written, independent articles based on news and current events involving aviation. And of course, I'll put up links to official and unofficial aviation-related websites when I find them. And when time permits, I'll talk and discuss about anything involving aviation. But most importantly, this is my way to document my journey into the aviation industry!

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Gallery Update: Allegiant 757 Charter Sighting!

Once again, I credit FlightAware.com for letting me know in advance of what I got to see today at the Provo Airport! One thing I like about college football season is the potential for charter flights and today, Provo got one of those! The first football game of the season for Brigham Young University (BYU) is an away game against University of Arizona, which happens this coming Saturday night. And believe it or not, BYU chartered a Boeing 757-200 from Allegiant Air to fly the team down to Arizona today, and I happened to photograph the chartered jet arriving as a ferry flight into Provo about an hour before my one class this afternoon.

It's kind of ironic and bitter-sweet to see an Allegiant-operated 757 fly into Provo today, considering that the airline officially ceased service to Hawaii just yesterday. Allegiant began acquiring used 757s for their fleet in order to begin services to Honolulu back in 2010 and revenue service started in June 2012; the 757s were acquired specifically for routes to Hawaii as the MD-80s (the only other aircraft type in the Allegiant fleet back at the time) did not have the range. ETOPS rating was gained from the FAA in 2011. At one point, Allegiant flew to Hawaii from ten west coast cities, but then got reduced down to two (Las Vegas and Los Angeles) before ceasing service to this market completely.

Allegiant operated a fleet of six Boeing 757-200s during this tenure, with one currently retired. What caused the Hawaii market to be such a bust for Allegiant was it's business model, which is built on hotel and car packages. Hawaii is dominated by vacation condos/timeshares. Plus, most of the hotel operators in Hawaii didn't want to partner with Allegiant, so they had far worse hotel offerings there than they do in other mainland vacation markets. Without the popular Hawaii hotels at their side, the low-cost carrier was missing out on revenue from hotel rooms, that would've otherwise made all the difference.

Retaining the small 757 fleet is also out of the question because the airframe hours are coming up to when heavy maintenance will be required. Known as a D-Check, it's a very rigorous maintenance routine that averages around 50,000 man hours to complete. Aircraft D-Checks can take up to two months to finish and involves taking the entire aircraft apart to be refurbished or get parts replaced. Heavy maintenance is expensive and Allegiant instead opted to phase out the 757 fleet completely. From a business perspective, this move makes sense. While Allegiant could possibly retain one or two 757s for sports charters (another money-maker for them) because of their larger seating capacity, it makes very little financial sense to support such a minuscule fleet of a specific aircraft type. Plus, there aren't many super long-range routes in the airline's network.

Regardless, I am very happy that I was able to see an Allegiant 757 before the airline retires them (which will happen some time in 2017). Here's the link:

Provo (PVU) 5

Photo preview:

Robinson R22 Beta (N3179A) working the Provo pattern.

Allegiant Air Boeing 757-204 (N902NV) arriving on 13 as AAY4401 from Las Vegas on a ferry flight to pick up the BYU football team. This was the very first 757 incorporated into the Allegiant's fleet. Airframe formerly registered as G-BYAE, first delivered to Britannia Airways before being leased to Icelandair. After returning to the Britannia fleet, it was stored briefly before getting picked up by Thomsonfly while retaining the same registration. After it's service life in Europe, the airframe was re-registered as N964BV under the ownership of AerCap and stored at Phoenix-Goodyear. Airframe was acquired by Allegiant in March 2010 and ferried to Everett, Washington to be configured for Hawaii service.

AAY4401 taxiing to the ramp.

This is probably the largest commercial aircraft to ever land at Provo. I am so glad I got to see one of Allegiant Air's 757s before they get sent to the boneyard!