Allegiant’s Phoenix route is on hiatus – Medford News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News

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Allegiant's Phoenix route is on hiatus Oct 02, 2011 12:00 AM A A Do you have any information as to why Allegiant Air would stop its flights from Phoenix/Mesa to Medford? We use it regularly and the flights are usually full. Its website doesn't offer any explanation, and when I recently visited the Medford airport, the ticket counter couldn't offer any explanation. — Dana A., via email Allegiant Air pursues the leisure passenger, rather than the regularly scheduled business client whose travel demands require getting to a destination at such and such a time. Because it has that luxury, it can provide bottom-dollar flights aboard its 150-passenger MD-80s during peak seasons and sit on the sidelines the rest of the time. "What we normally do in a lot of our markets is take what we call a seasonal hiatus," said Kristine Shattuck-Cooper. "Even though flights are full when our customers are traveling. The planes are not as full as they need to be in order to offer our low fares throughout the year." The present hiatus for the twice-weekly flights between Medford and the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport began Sept. 11. Shattuck-Cooper was unsure when the flights would resume. The present online schedule is through Feb. 14, but new dates and flight times are due to appear later this month. "We should have a schedule announcement for resumption of service in the next week or so," she said.