Name pact arrives at good time for airline

AS the rebel of the NFL, the Raiders may have found an ideal partner for the naming rights to Las Vegas’ 65,000-seat indoor stadium in Allegiant Air.

Like the Raiders, Las Vegas-based Allegiant is a maverick in aviation with unconventional strategies that disrupt what customers have come to expect from airlines. While major carriers focus on business customers whose expense accounts can afford high fares, Allegiant hones in on the thrifty leisure traveler.

Some don’t like the unbundled menu of ancillary services passengers buy when they fly Allegiant. Some call it nickel-and-diming the customers; Allegiant views it as passengers paying only for what they want and notes the charges are almost always wrapped around a low base fare. Over time, Allegiant customers have changed the way they travel, becoming more economically minded. Allegiant once carried an average 1.1 bag per passenger; today, it carries 0.5.

It’s possible some sports fans had to do a Google search to find out what Allegiant is.

More than likely, their searches brought up the airline’s turmoil in 2015 with mechanical breakdown issues and labor unrest. Newspapers and “60 Minutes” reported about its troubles long after the company set out to fix its problems, a turnaround that Chairman and CEO Maury Gallagher affectionately refers to as “Allegiant 2.0.”

One result of Allegiant 2.0 is that the company was able to make the bold step of sponsoring an NFL venue, giving the company an opportunity to tell its story to a national audience thanks to the name recognition Allegiant will get on Sundays and in prime time.

Allegiant can afford the price tag, estimated at between $20 million and $30 million a year for up to 30 years. Gallagher wouldn’t disclose the exact numbers in an interview last week and said he has no plans to make them public.

VELOTTA