Allegiant Travel Company (NASDAQ:ALGT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Helane Becker: Right. Got it. That’s really helpful. And then for my follow-up question, the other thing that some of your competitors, I don’t know if they’re really competitors, but some of the other airlines have been calling out has spent too much capacity in Las Vegas. And you didn’t mention that either. And yet, Las Vegas tends to be one of your larger locations, I don’t think it’s the largest anymore. I think that’s shifted around the network. But maybe can you talk a little bit about what you’re seeing in Las Vegas? And I guess the Grand Prix is coming pretty soon. So I’m imagining or near to see if the step-up in traffic there in addition to the holidays?

Robert Neal: Yes. Thanks Helane. Just because Vegas has seen incremental seats, does not necessarily mean that Allegiant has seen incremental seats on top of ourselves into Vegas our route and where we originate customers tend to be pretty differentiated. And the price points haven’t leaked into connecting traffic in a way that we saw in like 2015 when you could get to Vegas one stop for $100. So that has not manifested yet. So we still maintain a really solid network differentiation here that I think kind of puts us on an island if you will there. In terms of First quarter, Canada has been a little wrong on this. I went into it saying that it would probably be the worst suite that Allegiant has ever had coming into Vegas. And luckily that has not manifested, you’ve seen hotel pricing come down here looking at Scott DeAngelo but 50%, 60% in places that I think is catering back towards — away from the core F1 customer and more towards say Vegas experience and have some fast cars going on around the bend.

So it will be fine, but I wouldn’t call it out of anything that I believe will be super special for us.

Maurice Gallagher: Yeah. F1 is — Vegas is a mid-priced town. It’s not a high-end town like Monaco or something like that. And the hotel prices were starting off the stratosphere and you can’t blame them they’d start there and then come down. But it’s going to be a zoo here that weekend but it’s $20,000, $15,000 to get into pad [ph] as they call it. Those are not the usual Vegas prices.

Helane Becker: Got it. Maury, I’m really disappointed that you haven’t done an Investor Day at Allegiant Stadium in conjunction with one of the football teams there.

Maurice Gallagher: We’ll put it on the list. Helane that’s a good idea. We can do that.

Helane Becker: All right. Thanks very much you guys.

Maurice Gallagher: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. One on for our next question. Our next question will be coming from Catherine O’Brien of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Catherine O’Brien: Hey, good morning, everyone, and welcome back, Maury. Maybe just two quick ones on some of the ancillary revenue buckets, I thought it was great you shared that remuneration year-to-date on the credit card. I guess, is that similar to the revenue impact? I understand there is a bit of a timing difference there. And I guess any thoughts on what the tailwinds are they’re going forward? Like how should we think about — if we’re talking mid-single-digit capacity growth are we thinking about credit card remuneration above and beyond that? And I’ve got one more. Thanks.

Scott DeAngelo: Thanks, Catty. This is Scott DeAngelo. I’ll take the first couple of parts there. So the way to think about it is a rule of thumb about 75% to 80% of total compensation is recognized in any given year. A portion of what we get paid gets immediately recognized and the other portion is deferred and it’s in effect subsidizing a cardholder when they use points to buy air travel and it gets recognized as revenue once those points are redeemed. In terms of tailwinds, there’s a couple of things that I’ll speak to a high level at. We are aggressively pursuing what’s referred to as a second look program. So an augmentation of our credit card program that to the customer looks no different, but it’s other issuers who are willing to issue in the subprime and the near prime spaces, which currently are largely unserved by our product and that enabled us to open the aperture if you will on approval rate.

And then finally, the other thing we’re doing is marketing more aggressively not just in the plane, but through digital and even in some cases traditional advertising to build preference for and drive applications for the card in a way that we’ve never done before. So all of those things combined we expect to continue to plan tailwinds. Last point, we currently sit at about three percentage of our loyalty program has the card. Mature airlines, Delta and American, I believe bold made this public were more in the 13% to 14% of their loyalty program. So that gives you kind of an idea of what upside is there if these tailwinds above and beyond the traditional ASM growth can drive us down.

Greg Anderson: And Katie, it’s Greg. I just want to add one quick point to what Scott mentioned there. And that’s the network that we serve and the communities that we’re in so many of them were a really big deal. And our card is aspirational. They want that card. And it’s a great I think kind of program that we continue to build on that’s unique to Allegiant because again in those markets we are the game in town.

Catherine O’Brien: That’s great. And then maybe just one — sorry.

Maurice Gallagher: Go ahead, Katie. No, go ahead.

Catherine O’Brien: Just on Allegiant Extra, I know you talked about a positive contribution, but could you just put a finer point on that? Like what’s the average buy-up on an extra seat or can you talk about how revenue growth is trending on a maybe versus Allegiant extra fee growth? Any help there would be great. Thanks so much.

Robert Neal: Yes, Kate. I think this is something we continually say, hey we’ll dive into more detail at an Investor Day and really provide some good stuff there and we even keep pushing the Investor Day. So I promise we’ll get there at a future Investor Day. In terms of occupancy, we tend to get by right around the 50% mark give or take at a pretty meaningful unitized rev over any other seat. So we’re — I think we’ve stated about $1 per passenger in the past but I think that might be a little bit conservative as we’ve seen continued growth.

Catherine O’Brien: Right. Maybe I’ll just throw another location into the ring with Helane. I’d love to go see Sunseeker so keep us close on that Investor Day. Thanks, guys.

Robert Neal: All right. Thanks Katie.

Operator: Thank you. And our last question for today is coming from Ravi Shanker of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Ravi Shanker: Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. So a, Maury, welcome back and b, I just wanted to follow up on something you said earlier about how high jet fuel prices kind of almost forces capacity — across the industry. We have seen some indications of that on the 3Q conference calls with some of the low-cost carriers talking about muting their growth plans for next year. Do you think the industry finally gets it on capacity discipline for next year? Or do you think there’s kind of still a little bit of proof needed on kind of walking the talk there?

Maurice Gallagher: We’ve got what 30 40 years of deregulation history bucking a new 10 trend. If you want to take a comparable one price of oil has gone up dramatically since February ’22 but you haven’t seen the fracking industry run out and put a lot of new wells in. They’ve caught a lot of grief from your compatriots about saving investment and make some money. So you’re seeing behavioural changes there which have I think affected supply and the U.S. has always been the counterbalance for oil and knocking the price down when it gets to rich from the Middle East and Russia and those guys. So maybe you have new trends there. I think the industry is very focused on making money. The big guys are definitely showing that they like having those numbers.