Changing Travel Demands Lead Ultra-Low-Cost Carriers to Reduce Flights

The nation’s most budget-friendly airlines are cutting back their number of Tuesday and Wednesday flights amid surging demand for peak travel days and periods.

According to Travel Weekly, both Frontier Airlines and Allegiant Air have dramatically cut down their midweek schedules, with the former reducing service on Tuesday and Wednesday by approximately 20 percent during the second half of the year.

For perspective, during the first week of June 2019, Allegiant flew 7.2 percent of its operations on Tuesday and 13.6 percent of its flights on Wednesday, based on an analysis of Milanamos airline industry data by the consulting firm Hospitio. By comparison, that same week this year, Allegiant flew only 1.9 percent of its weekly schedule on Tuesday and just 7.8 percent on Wednesday.

“While overall leisure travel is increasing, the benefit is disproportionately landing on peak days and in peak travel periods,” Daniel Shurz, Frontier’s senior vice president of commercial, said about his carrier’s changes.

“Making these slight network reductions allows us to allocate our resources where they’re most needed, ultimately helping us enhance our reliability and better serve our customers,” Allegiant spokesman Hector Mejia said in an email to Travel Weekly.

Based on data from Cirium, Allegiant will fly just 2.2 percent of its operations on Tuesday during the second of week of September.