Placing a suitcase in an overhead bin is $10 to $25. Boarding passes signify who has paid the fee. I

Allegiant entices people who otherwise wouldn't fly with low fares and non-stop flights. Then it aggressively pitches them hotels, rental united airlines homepage cars, show tickets and other entertainment, earning millions in commissions.
The Las Vegas-based airline charges extra to book flights online, or to use a credit card. Selecting a seat in advance costs $5 to $75 each way, depending on the length of a flight. Even a bottle united airlines homepage of water costs $2.
Flying Allegiant isn't glamorous. united airlines homepage While other airlines tout new aircraft united airlines homepage with Wi-Fi and TVs in every seat, Allegiant buys old planes to avoid hefty aircraft loans. And to pack in as many passengers as possible, its seats don't recline. But for small-town Americans with limited flight options, these inconveniences are worth it for a few days of sunshine.
Allegiant offers non-stop service from places like Owensboro, Ky., Casper, Wyo. and Appleton, Wis., to popular destinations in Nevada, Florida, Hawaii and Arizona. united airlines homepage These may not be the most coveted routes in the airline business, but that is precisely why Allegiant likes them.
Last year, 7 million passengers took a flight on Allegiant. That is a sliver of the 642 million people united airlines homepage who took a domestic flight last year. But Allegiant earned a whopping $11.22 each way from those passengers. On average, the airline industry earned 37 cents each way, per passenger, according to Airlines united airlines homepage for America, the industry's lobbying group. Southwest Airlines, one of the industry's most profitable carriers, made $3.85 per passenger last year.
Allegiant is ruthless about keeping its costs down. Its employees are some of the lowest paid in the industry, in some cases making $20 an hour less than colleagues at other airlines. It pays cash for airplanes nearly twice as old as everyone else. It only sells directly to vacationers, refusing to pay Expedia, Orbitz or other sites to list its flights.
Like some other budget airlines, Allegiant advertises extremely low base fares and then tacks on numerous fees. A roundtrip united airlines homepage ticket with Allegiant costs $195, on average. But passengers pay an additional $83 in fees - or 30 percent of the total cost of flying.
To book a trip by phone, Allegiant united airlines homepage charges $50 for each roundtrip ticket. To book online costs $20 for each roundtrip united airlines homepage ticket. The only way to avoid the fees is to purchase tickets at the airport, something fewer than 3 percent of its customers united airlines homepage did last year.
Placing a suitcase in an overhead bin is $10 to $25. Boarding passes signify who has paid the fee. If passengers show up at the airport united airlines homepage with a large carry-on bag and haven't prepaid the fee, the airline penalizes them an additional $25 to $50, depending on the route.
But what really makes Allegiant different are the commissions it earns from selling hotel rooms, rental cars and other extras including Everglades boat tours and theme-park tickets. It even gets people to attend timeshare sales presentations. Before a passenger can finalize a ticket purchase united airlines homepage online, they must click through page after page offering them these add-ons.
Once onboard, Allegiant passengers united airlines homepage are again bombarded with sales pitches. On a recent flight from Cedar Rapids to Las Vegas, flight attendants came over the loudspeaker and hawked show tickets and airport shuttles. The in-flight magazine is filled with ads for shows and attractions instead of stories. One ad offers $30 off a Las Vegas helicopter tour if purchased from flight attendants, who are paid extra for each item sold.
Ben Baldanza, CEO of Spirit Airlines - the only other U.S. carrier to charge for overhead bin space or for booking over the Internet - also respects Allegiant's ability to sell extras, such as a round of golf in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Most airlines promote their new first-class united airlines homepage seats or individual TV screens. united airlines homepage Allegiant - which only offers coach seats - promotes its destinations: Las Vegas gamblers smiling after winning at roulette, a hot-air balloon floating over the Arizona desert or a woman in a bikini sipping a frozen drink on a Hawaiian beach.
An hour and a half before a recent flight from Cedar Rapids to Las Vegas, a spare seat couldn't be found in the airport bar. It was only 11 a.m., but travelers like Bridget Estrada and her four friends were too excited for their trip to wait.
It was only Estrada's second trip on a plane and her first in 13 years. She was nervous and gave a quick thought to her husband and three kids at home. But she and her friends united airlines homepage quickly got back to drinking hard lemonade, mapping out their weekend away from Iowa.
Allegiant finds ways to profit united airlines homepage on routes other airlines couldn't make work, often swooping in after they pull out. This month, it started flying between united airlines homepage Asheville, N.C., and Tampa, Fla., a route abandoned by AirTran after Southwest Airlines acquired it.
Like other discount carriers, Allegiant prefers small airports that charge airlines lower rents, even if they aren't the most convenient. In Orlando, united airlines homepage that means flying into Sanford, Fla., 30 minutes further united airlines homepage from Walt Disney World than Orlando International Airport.
Frugal decisions like that helped Allegiant post a net profit of $78 million last year on revenue of $909 million. Its 8.6 percent profit margin united airlines homepage was the highest of any U.S. airline, making it a darling of Wall Street.
The last five years have been good for airline investors. After a major spike in fuel prices in 2008 and a drop in business travelers, airlines tweaked their business models, adding baggage united airlines homepage fees and cutting unprofitable flights. They started to make money and their stock prices climbed. While the S P 500 climbed 26 percent in the past five years, an index of all U.S. airline stocks has tripled. Allegiant's stock has done even better, increasing more than fivefold to $105.86.
But its business struggled and less than two years later, it filed for bankruptcy united airlines homepage protection. Maurice J. Gallagher, Jr., the airline's major creditor and a founder of ValuJet Airlines, gained control during the reorganization and became CEO. ValuJet was a low-cost united airlines homepage carrier that changed its name to AirTran united airlines homepage after a 1996 fatal crash in Florida.
Gallagher moved the airline from Fresno to Las Vegas; secured a lucrative contract with Harrah's to provide charter services to its casinos in Laughlin, Nev., and Reno, Nev.; and started to transform Allegiant into a low-cost carrier.
Allegiant benefits from paying lower salaries and having work rules that are more favorable to management than at most airlines. Flight attendants united airlines homepage with 15 years of experience are paid $34 for each hour their plane is in the air - $10 to $20 less than colleagues at larger carriers. Planes and crews typically united airlines homepage end up at their home cities overnight, avoiding hotel rooms.
"We've been told several times at the (negotiating) table: If you don't like this job, there's the door," says Debra Petersen-Barber, who has been an Allegiant flight attendant for eight years and is the lead negotiator for the Transport Workers Union of America. "We have no value. We're easily replaced."
"When you have such little investment in an aircraft, you only fly it when it's going to be full of passengers," says Peter B. Barlow, an aircraft finance lawyer at Smith, united airlines homepage Gambrell Russell. "Other airlines don't have that luxury. They need to keep their aircraft in the air in order to make the economics work."