Allegiant Travel Company - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2023 Allegiant Travel Company Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listening-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Sherry Wilson. Please go ahead.

Sherry Wilson (Managing Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Lisa. Welcome to the Allegiant Travel Company Q3 2023 earnings call. On the call with me today are Maury Gallagher, the company's Executive Chairman and CEO, Greg Anderson, President, Scott DeAngelo, our EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Drew Wells, our SVP and Chief Revenue Officer, Robert Neal, SVP and Chief Financial Officer, and a handful of others to help answer questions. We will start the call with commentary and then open it up to questions. We ask that you please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up. The company's comments today will contain forward-looking statements concerning our future performance and strategic plans. Various risk factors could cause the underlying assumptions of these statements and our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements. These risk factors and others are more fully disclosed in our filings with the SEC.

Any forward-looking statements are based on information available to us today. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of future events, new information, or otherwise. The company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which may be based on assumptions and events that do not materialize. To view this earnings release, as well as the rebroadcast of the call, feel free to visit the company's investor relations site at ir.allegiantair.com. With that, I'll turn it to Maury.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Sherry, and well, hello again. Some of you may recognize my voice. I hope you've all been well the past year and a half. It's good to be back. As you saw in our release, Allegiant Airlines generated an operating profit in Q3 after adjustments, our 11th quarter in a row of airline operating profits beginning in Q1 of 2021. Our year-to-date 2023, 13% airline operating margin leads the industry for those that have reported. We have achieved these results while continuing to invest for the future. During the past quarter, we've installed two substantial management systems, SAP and Navitaire. Both are operating as I write this. As you saw at the top of our release, Sunseeker will open December 15. It's been a 5-year effort, almost 3 years longer than planned, but the wait will be worth it.

Micah Richins, our Sunseeker President, and his cohorts, Jason Shkorupa and Paul Berry, all MGM Las Vegas veterans, are putting the final touches on this magnificent project. The critical reason I endorsed Sunseeker was the quality of this management group. Our ability to attract these gentlemen, to convince them to work for a startup, move their families to Florida, speaks volumes of their belief in this project. Micah is here with us today, I'm happy to announce, to answer any questions. Our first MAX 8-200 is scheduled for delivery in early 2024. Our MAX fleet will have a premium seating of just over 50 of our 190 seats and will improve our economics in the coming years.

Besides the benefits from the quality and number of seats, it will have a substantially improved fuel burn compared to the Airbus, improved reliability, a maintenance honeymoon, while maintaining a comparable Airbus ownership expense. We're excited about onboarding the MAX in coming years and beyond. During the past few months, there have been discussions concerning a structural shift in our industry, particularly as it pertains to the ULCCs. We, Spirit and Frontier, invented this industry segment during the past 20 years, focusing on low cost and high growth for our leisure customers. There's been and still are differences between our business model and the Frontier-centric model. At the end of the day, you judge us on our profitability. Costs are a part of the equation, but having the lowest cost does not guarantee success. We at Allegiant have a flexible model focused on flying when the customers want to fly.

Or said differently, we minimize our flying in off-peak periods and peak up for the peak periods. That has been our model for over 20 years. In addition, our direct-to-consumer customer sales approach is less expensive and allows us to capture important customer information. I might add we have over 18 million names in our customer database at this point. It also allows us to capture more of a leisure customer's wallet with our third-party revenue program. During the past 5 years, we have prioritized enhancing our brand as well. These efforts include adding Allegiant Stadium, our soon-to-be-open Sunseeker Resort, our best-in-show completion percentage, and our number-one-ranked credit card program. All are difference, difference makers. These investments have allowed us to maintain unit revenues that have been consistently higher than the high-utilization ULCCs, today, as much as 40% higher.

As we all know, revenue production is the issue of the day. Our revenue production is one of the critical differences that separates us from the ULCC crowd. Our network structure is also different. We have operated an out-and-back schedule since our earliest days. It's much simpler to manage than the traditional hub-and-spoke. Each route stands alone. We monitor what we believe its capacity should be and hence its profitability. We are diligent in managing individual route earnings. We have had a 22-year history of consistent profits and growth with this scheduling approach. Industry-leading profits, I might add. Additionally, with our focus on smaller cities to sun and fun destinations, we've been able to own the majority of our markets. 75% of our routes have no direct competition. As I said, we own these markets.

This contrasts with the 90% overlap, the high utilization ULCCs have in their networks. Lastly, we have identified as many as 1,400 new domestic routes that we could add in the coming years, plus the addition of our international partnership with Viva. More subtle difference has been the pace of growth. During our 22 years, we've grown to 127 aircraft, or an average of 5.7 per year. Others in this space have grown at a much faster pace, to date, adding aircraft almost 3 times faster per year than we have. Still, others have planned deliveries in the coming years that have double-digit yearly adds with a three handle if you do the math.

Fast growth, while attractive, attractive to the audience on the phone here, creates potential operational problems, including a concentrated fleet of the same aircraft type, which has historically been desired, but today has become a burden with the Pratt & Whitney problem. Operational size and complexity that most likely outpaces management experience. And lastly, a pronounced competitive response, given the network overlap with the larger incumbent carriers. We are built for the long haul for consistency. We have a bright future. I understand there's a new label as well for ULCC circulating, LMAs or Low Margin Airlines. That description does not define our nor fit our model. At this time, given the names seem to be in vogue, given new names, I'm proposing a new label for us. No more ULCC and certainly no LMA. Our new label is PLFC, Profitable Leisure Focused Carrier.

That's what we are going to be called from now on. We are in a class of our own. Lastly, let me thank our team members. There's been a difficult three to four years. They have been supporting our passengers with safe, reliable, and friendly service during this time. They have run the best airline this year, an industry-leading 99.8% completion factor. In today's era of poor service and canceled flights, they have put us back where we belong, at the top of the pack. Thank you very much. Greg?

Greg Anderson (President)

Maury, thank you. Great to have you back. As we experience broader macro uncertainty around geopolitical risk, inflation, and high interest rates, there also appear to be signs of structural changes happening in our industry. In the face of these uncertainties, Allegiant is uniquely set up to continue to reshape the leisure travel sector. We have been strengthening our foundation to do just that. Operational excellence underpins everything we do, and our year-to-date controllable completion of 99.8% demonstrates that, also resulting in a staggering reduction of nearly $100 million or 75% in total IROP costs year-over-year. Our disciplined approach to costs, and particularly our variable cost model, gives us a competitive advantage as we adjust capacity to the environment. Whether day of week, month of year, or route by route, our planning teams are expertly matching capacity with leisure demand.

As leisure demand, seasonality has more normalized, we are working towards a measured approach to take utilization higher during the peak demand periods, or in other words, peak to peaks. For instance, average aircraft utilization was seven hours during this past summer. Increasing that by one hour would drive roughly $50 million more in earnings. The composition of our mixed fleet, balanced with our with both low per seat and low per trip costs, will further benefit us by deploying the right gauge aircraft in the right markets at the right time. Our 737 MAX aircraft will strengthen our fleet flexibility. It's nearly 20% fuel burn advantage, yet similar ownership cost profile translates into incremental earnings power of more than $2 million more per MAX aircraft when compared to the compared to our existing fleet.

Furthermore, we are excited to expand premium seatings for our customers. Every MAX aircraft delivered will enter into service in the Allegiant Extra configuration, while the retrofit of the in-service A320s has already begun and will complete over time. Our Allegiant Extra product continues to deliver as it is in high demand with our customers and driving meaningful value. During 2023, we expect to fly nearly 18 million customers. Notably, we were the most convenient and only nonstop option available on approximately 75% of the routes from the communities we serve. Our direct distribution strategy, coupled with our continued ascension of our brand, is unlocking deep and long-standing relationships with our customers.

On an annual basis, nearly two-thirds of our customers are repeating their experience with us, 12 million of whom are members of our award-winning Allways Rewards, fueling the amazing growth of our aspirational loyalty program that Scott will discuss momentarily. Our continued investments in technological upgrades to our foundational systems, such as SAP, Navitaire, TRAX, and NAVBLUE, not only optimize scale and provide new capabilities, they also free up development resources for strategic, differentiated products to drive more revenue or reduce costs. Furthermore, Navitaire will unlock international expansion for us into coveted beach destinations in Mexico, alongside our joint venture partner, Viva Aerobus, once we can secure the necessary government approvals. Each of these initiatives mentioned have or should provide significant long-term benefits for the company. However, none have near as great of impact as Team Allegiant.

As we listen and learn from our team members across the system, I am constantly energized by their commitment and their passion. They are dedicated to taking care of our customers and each other. While earlier this year, we ratified and extended two of our four labor agreements, we still have two to go, one with flight attendants and one with pilots. I want to reiterate management's commitment to getting agreements in place that our flight crews will be proud to support. What Team Allegiant has accomplished this year is truly remarkable. While today, our broad footprint serves 125 cities with over 550 routes throughout the United States, we are positioning to grow our airline profitably as the environment allows.

Allegiant's business model and the role we play in the communities we serve, has knitted us into the fabric of the nation's leisure travel industry. We have identified 14,00+ incremental routes that fit beautifully into the Allegiant network.... As we expand in those markets, we further solidify the important and necessary part we play in the travel industry throughout the U.S. In closing, I want to extend my sincerest thanks to all of our team members. Together, we are running a great airline. Together, we have meaningfully strengthened our foundation, and together, Team Allegiant has proven to be unstoppable. Thank you. Scott?

Scott DeAngelo (EVP and CMO)

Thanks, Greg. Q3 saw continued post-pandemic normalization of domestic leisure travel demand. We saw peak demand levels during July, when we topped bookings and load factor versus last year's historic highs. We saw slight demand decline during August versus prior year, as back to school came mid-month for many of the cities we serve, and summer vacation season came to an end. We saw further modest demand decline in September versus prior year as we officially entered the off-peak leisure travel season. As you all know, our business model has always focused on the domestic leisure traveler, and these peak versus off-peak ebbs and flows in domestic leisure travel demand regularly existed before the pandemic, and a year removed from unprecedented levels of pent-up revenge travel demand in 2022, the same familiar ebbs and flows have returned this year.

That said, there are two areas of potential domestic leisure travel demand headwinds that are being talked about a lot in the industry, and that I'd like to address based on what we're seeing and hearing from our customers at Allegiant. The first is the economy. We conduct a weekly customer sentiment tracking survey, where we ask our customers how they feel about the state of the economy. At the beginning of the Q3, about 50% said they felt the economy was getting somewhat or much worse. In the past several weeks, that number has grown to nearly 70%. However, during that same time span, as captured within the same survey, the portion of customers saying they intend to book air travel in the next 90 days has remained virtually unchanged.

We believe this seeming contradiction can be easily explained by the majority of our customers who say they are traveling to visit friends or family, as well as by the material portion of our customers who say they are traveling between a primary residence and a second vacation home. As we've stated in the past, it's been our experience that these remain the most reliable and resilient forms of leisure travel during economic downturns. The second area is international travel. For the past quarter, we've also surveyed our customers weekly on this topic. Consistently, up to 20% of our customers do say that they either had traveled or are planning to travel abroad this year. However, the vast majority of those, nearly 90%, said that their international travel is in addition to, not in substitution of, their domestic leisure travel plans.

While these observations may be different than what other airlines are seeing or saying, it likely speaks to Allegiant's differentiated low utilization business model, with a focus on selling our all nonstop route network direct to consumers under a surging brand and winning loyalty programs that are unique in their ability to engage and reward the domestic leisure traveler. Speaking of our loyalty programs, our most loyal and engaged segment within the Allways Rewards program is, of course, our co-branded credit cardholders. Q3 year to date, these cardholders have exhibited 11% greater spend on the card on a per cardholder basis versus last year. In addition, our co-branded cardholders continue to exhibit strong travel frequency and spend, with net revenue booked up 10% versus prior year.

Through Q3, total co-branded credit card program compensation has been $88 million, which is 14% higher than last year and puts us well on our way to surpassing $100 million in total program compensation for the full year. Our Allways Rewards non-credit card program also continues to show strong positive impact on customer behavior. Q3 year to date, nearly 13 million Allways Rewards member passenger segments have been booked. That's 17% more than last year, and for the same time period, spend per member is about 5% greater than last year.

Finally, as Maury mentioned, completion of enterprise-wide systems implementations that provide a modern technology foundation for all areas of our business will free up technology development capacity for smaller, but nonetheless critical strategic enhancements to our website, mobile app, and loyalty programs, helping us supercharge our abilities to drive greater revenue outside the aircraft and high-margin third-party products and loyalty program partnerships. We believe that these enhancements enable us to further differentiate Allegiant and further diversify the ways we drive revenue. And with that, I'll turn it over to our Chief Revenue Officer, Drew Wells.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Thank you, Scott, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. I'm extremely pleased with the record Q3 performance of $565 million in total revenue, growth of nearly 1% on system ASM reduction of 0.4%. This combination produced a TRASM of $0.1278, which bested any previous Q3 and grew year-over-year by 1.4%. Our commitment to matching capacity and demand set us up for success in the Q3, with nearly 45% of our scheduled ASMs coming in July, and in September, having just more than half of July's flying. However, we are still meaningfully constrained in the best demand periods, limiting our ability to truly match with appropriate capacity.

Despite the relatively outweighed July level of flying, our utilization was almost 2.5 hours per aircraft per day lower than 2019, lower than any year since 2015, when MD-80s flew over 60% of our ASMs. We have proven the ability to achieve peak flying, and as we will always schedule peak periods to the first operational constraint, either aircraft or crew, expect to restore utilization alongside the relief of those constraints. As we continue to learn what the new normal means for the travel industry, one component of pre-pandemic travel has firmly returned: the gap between peak and off-peak performance. By way of example, Saturdays and post Labor Day, September 2023, were approximately 30% worse than July Saturdays in terms of unit revenue and in line with 2019's peak-to-trough variance. Last year, that figure was just 15% worse.

As one would expect, the combination of outperforming off-peak periods in late 2022 and current year demand normalizing creates a tough environment for year-over-year figures. This makes me even prouder of the results we generated. A significant part of this was continued success of our air ancillary products, which grew approximately 10% on a per-passenger basis year-over-year. First and foremost, our learning and experimenting with bundled ancillaries continue to show incredible strides. Additionally, Allegiant Extra contribution on a per-flight basis has improved year-over-year in every quarter, despite increasing the number of configured aircraft. We will end the year with roughly 11% of the fleet configured for Allegiant Extra and expect that to grow to nearly 30% of the year-end 2024 fleet. Underscoring both and air ancillary at large are the expected improvements of Navitaire.

One of the ramifications of specific use case internal development is some mismatch of existing capabilities versus the off-the-shelf product. I truly believe this is a significant signal of strength for our internal capabilities that will become supercharged in the future state. So while we still have immense confidence in the upside to come with Navitaire, we actually expect to see some slight headwinds into the Q4 due to a short-term, small loss of functionality. I believe it's worth reminding that the entire leisure demand ecosystem remains well above pre-pandemic levels, with July roughly flat with 2022 and high teens% above 2019. In fact, among carriers reporting thus far, Allegiant is the only carrier up double digits in both capacity and unit revenue year-over-year, both in the Q3 and year to date through the Q3.

We are also seeing some normalcy as we shift into Q4 and expect a TRASM reasonably in line with pre-pandemic historic median sequential change. While certainly off from the extraordinary Q4 2022 comp, it should still produce a better Q4 TRASM than any pre-pandemic Q4 and a last nine months, 2023 TRASM higher than the last nine months of 2022. Additionally, there is some growth through the Q4, around 5%. This should put full year scheduled service capacity up approximately 1.5% versus full year 2022, while system capacity should be approximately +1.8%. The growth in the quarter is focused in two areas: weeks with large forecasted cost per gallon declines, like in October, and holiday weeks, which will extend into early January 2024 as well.

As I mentioned, even with the growth, holiday flying will still be lower than we would ultimately desire. However, we believe we've struck the right balance of profitability, potential, and operations within the limitations present, particularly after 2022's weather impacted holiday operations across the industry. Further, we are treading carefully with capacity in early 2024 with so many moving parts, Boeing deliveries, crew pools for transition training, and persistent elevated fuel, among others. I expect the first half of the year to be fairly flat, with a full year target of up mid-single digits. The holiday weeks, as with all peaks, have shown incredible resilience. Even Labor Day in September was a record. I maintain high expectations for holiday performance while expecting normal leisure softness around them. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Robert.

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

Thanks, Drew, and good morning, everyone. This morning, we reported our Q3 2023 financial results, which included an adjusted consolidated net income of $2.7 million and an adjusted earnings per share of $0.09. Included in that number is approximately $6 million in costs related to resort operations ahead of opening our Sunseeker property later this year. Adjusted net income for the airline was $7.9 million, yielding an adjusted airline earnings per share of $0.31. Total operating revenue during the quarter was $565 million, up approximately 1% over the same quarter last year and the highest of any Q3 in our history.

This was on a slight capacity reduction of 0.8%, resulting in TRASM of $0.1278, which was 1.4% higher as compared to the same quarter last year. Fuel costs increased sharply beginning mid-August, driving a September cost per gallon 27.5% above July's. This brought our Q3 cost per gallon to $3.09, 15% above the prior quarter, and brings our estimated full year cost per gallon to $3.12, an increase of $0.22 from the prior guide of $2.90. Adjusted non-fuel unit costs were just under $0.085, which was an increase of 9.5% over the Q3 of 2022.

Our non-fuel unit cost increase was driven by approximately seven points in wage increases for frontline employees, inclusive of our pilot payroll accrual, which was in place for all three months during the quarter. Other drivers of the unit cost increase were 1.7 points from lower asset utilization and approximately 0.5 point related to inflationary costs in aircraft maintenance and stations, and the rest from a handful of other items. Assuming an estimated fuel cost of $3.12 per gallon for the full year, we are expecting an adjusted airline earnings per share of approximately $8.15 at the midpoint, down from $11.75 at the midpoint of prior guidance. Fuel costs drive a reduction of $2.40 per share, and the reduced off-peak revenue makes up most of the remaining $1.20.

As Maury noted, opening of Sunseeker has shifted by about two months, and as a result, we are now expecting only about two weeks of revenue production during the year, which would take our full-year Sunseeker guidance to a loss per share of $1.75, as compared to our prior estimate of $1.20. Although I'm pleased to see significant improvement in 2023 over the prior year with respect to financial performance, we still have work to do to return to sustained industry-leading margins. With the introduction of a new fleet type, alongside a volatile fuel environment and the normalization of leisure demand patterns, we expect to take a conservative and measured approach to growth during next year. We've made significant investments in the business this year, and we remain confident these investments will deliver expanding margins in the coming years.

On the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with net debt of $1.3 billion and just under $1.3 billion in available liquidity, which included $1 billion in cash and investments and $280 million in undrawn revolvers. In addition, we are pleased to have more than $400 million in committed financing for upcoming aircraft deliveries and predelivery deposits. We refinanced 7 A320 aircraft during the quarter and used proceeds toward this morning's prepayment of a $150 million bond, which was scheduled to mature in 2024. With committed financing covering the vast majority of our CapEx obligations up to the Q2 of next year and our largest 2024 maturity now repaid, we expect to maintain liquidity at the greater of 2x our air traffic liability or $850 million at year-end.

Q3 airline capital expenditures were $157.6 million, which included $112 million in aircraft inductions and predelivery deposits, $45.5 million in other airline CapEx, and deferred heavy maintenance spend of $14 million. Capital expenditures related to Sunseeker were $71.6 million. Our guidance today reduces our full year 2023 estimated airline CapEx, excluding heavy maintenance, to approximately $590 million, largely due to the timing of aircraft deliveries, shifting some of this spend into 2024 and 2025. Turning to fleet, we inducted one A320 aircraft during the quarter, which was owned and on property at the end of the Q2. We expect two additional A320 purchases during the Q4 before we begin taking deliveries of our 737 MAX order book in early 2024.

During the quarter, we reached agreement with Boeing on an amendment to our order for 50 737 MAX aircraft, whereby the firm aircraft are now scheduled to deliver through the Q4 of 2025. We've converted 6 of our MAX 7 positions to the MAX 8-200 variant, and we're pleased to now have 80 options in our MAX order book, securing opportunities for fleet growth through 2029 and providing tremendous flexibility, allowing us to evaluate the results of a new fleet type in our business prior to making further commitments. I'm pleased with our year-to-date financial performance, yielding an adjusted airline operating margin of roughly 13%, notwithstanding the continued heightened fuel. Our low utilization model sets us up nicely to expertly deploy capacity to meet seasonal demand trends, and we will enhance this with the introduction of more efficient aircraft next year.

By the time of our next earnings call, we expect to have opened Sunseeker, taken delivery of our first MAX aircraft, and starting to see the benefits of Navitaire and the systems investments we've made in 2023. Certainly, we're not out of the woods on execution risk yet, but we are excited about the positive momentum we have on these initiatives heading into 2024. Thank you, Lisa, and we can now begin taking analyst questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Also, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you, and please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question today will be coming from Michael Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 18

Hi, everyone. This is actually Shannon Doherty on for Mike. Maury, congratulations and, and welcome back. If I may, you know, you guys' first half results were much better than the second half. It was actually quite a meaningful deceleration of earnings into the second half. So how does that impact your decision-making for 2024 when you think about capacity, which markets to serve, fleet planning? You know, if you can give us anything, any more color here, that'd be helpful. Thank you.

Greg Anderson (President)

Hey, Shannon, this is Greg. Why don't I kick it off? You know, there's some components in the first half of the year, obviously, demand, strength in the off-peak fuel, you know, that helped fuel that that higher profitability versus the second half of the year. But as we think about 2024, we're not coming out and gonna give a guide this year, but I think BJ hit on it really nicely in his remarks, where that we should think about 2024 of unlocking a lot of the benefits and the investments that we've made. I mean, first and foremost, from my perspective, we wanna continue to work hard to get labor deals complete for our flight crews. So that, that's a key component.

Systems, you know, both Maury and I alluded to this, as did Scott DeAngelo, in our opening remarks, but we've made, made massive investments in new kind of next-generational type systems. And when I say investments, I mean, these are hundreds of thousands of man-hours that we've been putting in on each one of these systems, SAP, TRAX. We've got those two over, we have two more to go. And what we're gonna do with those systems now is we're gonna get better. We're gonna learn how to use them properly, we're gonna become more efficient, we can scale better. So that, that's an important element as well. Obviously, Sunseeker opening, bringing on the Boeing aircraft. So there's just been a lot of investments in the business, that I think truly believe will strengthen us.

But one thing I wanna say, as we think about capacity next year and balancing that with, with, the environment and the normalization that we've seen, it's how do we get back to peaking those peaks? And we've been constrained for various reasons, whether that be the broader ecosystem, ATC, whether that be labor. But really, if you think about 2023, and if you remember a year ago when we talked about entering 2023, we said we needed to level set operations, we need to make sure we ran integrity, operational excellence and integrity, and we've done that. And now it's how do we balance and build that back? And as we think about peaking the peaks, I'm not sure if Drew or anyone wants to add any commentary there for next year or anything else on 2024?

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

... Yeah, I mean, we hit on this a little bit in my remarks, but you know, the peaks are subject to any operational constraint all of the time, right? Right now, there's a bit more constraining than typical. We earn a significant amount of our annual earnings through those periods. There will come a time that we get some relief on those constraints, and then we will be able to peak. We've been capped relatively similar in terms of departures per peak day in the summer for the last several years, which is not something we've experienced in the past.

You know, beyond that, we've taken a lot of strides to maintain operational integrity, and we kind of threw a lot of things at that, and now we can start to claw those back in a meaningful way as we start to understand how each of those components builds up to the whole. So I think what you're seeing is something that's on the more conservative side relative to what we've thrown out before. We've proven that we can do peaks at close to 10 hours a day, and then I have every bit of confidence we'll get back there.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Well, one other comment. The Q3 is always our weakest quarter, and what we've got going on now is our Q4 just hasn't shown up because you've got a resetting of going back to traditional, you know, network types of things, and people are trying to get back into a form factor that they're used to. And so, you know, to Drew and Greg's point, we need to now, 2024 will be the first time, I think, when we can really look and reinstitute the 2019 model that we so well ran back then.

We may not be hitting on all cylinders in 2024, but we'll be well on our way to, you know, our typical very good Q1, very good Q2, Q3, break even, weak Q4, start getting ready for the next year and do the same thing.

Speaker 18

Thank you. And did I hear you guys correctly, that we should think Q1 capacity somewhat flat and still targeting mid-single digits next year capacity for the full year?

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Generally, yeah, first half of the year, probably roughly flat with mid-singles, but full year target.

Speaker 18

Okay, great. And if I can squeeze one more in really quickly. You know, Greg, and you guys, thank you for all the remarks on, you know, utilization, but I was intrigued by, you know, the one-hour increase in utilization that could have possibly increased profits by $50 million. If you were to just, you know, pinpoint what is limiting you the most right now on increasing your aircraft utilization, I know you guys listed a bunch of things like ATC, labor. Where is the biggest pain point currently? Thank you.

Greg Anderson (President)

No, no, thanks for the question, Shannon. That would be just in the summer period. If you think about it on a full year, the summers are our peakiest or longest peak period, but if you add March and you add the winter, the holidays, it's probably more like $100 million in total, if you're able to take an hour up of utilization.

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

I'd say it just depends on the period. In March, it was we were more aircraft constrained. In the summer, it's been more labor constraints, but also trying to balance what we were seeing with some of the disruptions around airports or ATC. But kind of underpinning all of this, Shannon, though, is operational integrity, and we capped our peak period flying this year. Before we even entered, we just said, "We won't do any more than this, roughly seven hours per day, until we build it back.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

I might just add real quick. While that's the biggest component to peaking the peaks, we probably lost between half hour and an hour of utilization simply with elevated fuel, and kind of the demand versus fuel bake-off that happens in off-peak periods. There still is value to be had in off-peaks, despite all of this, but it's much harder to find it at $3.50 a gallon than it is at, you know, $2.15, kind of where we were in 2019. So I don't want to fully lose sight of that either.

Speaker 18

All right. Thank you all for your time.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. While we prepare for the next question. Our next question will be coming from Savi Syth of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Savi Syth (Managing Director)

Hey, good morning. Could I ask you about your 2024 fleet plan? You know, Boeing, you said 2 more Airbus, and then kind of, is it the rest just Boeing then, and hopefully you'll get to a month?

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

Yeah. So, hey, Savi, it's BJ. For 2024, we are currently contracted to take delivery of two airplanes per month throughout 2024. As you know, and I think you're alluding to, there's a lot of moving parts there, so we're staying close to Boeing on that. And it's for that reason that we kept a good amount of flexibility in the used fleet that we'll keep in service for next year. Candidly, there's a few other candidates out there that we'd like to retire a little bit more quickly, but we're going to keep those in through next year as a bit of an insurance policy. The two A320s that you're talking about are purchased this year and inducted in, I think, January, February or sometime during the Q1 of next year.

And then we have the MAX aircraft entering service late Q1, and building on that throughout the year. On the high end, I would expect a total fleet count around 140, 141, but that's not guidance. That's about as high as it could go.

Savi Syth (Managing Director)

That's helpful. And then, if I might, you heard, some of your competitors talking about, you know, where, where a lot of the extra capacity is in, in kind of some of the, kind of bigger markets, crowded markets and, and wanting to redeploy the capacity. I'm wondering, and, and on the other hand, too, you have regional airlines that I, I think trends are bottoming and maybe starting to, as you get into 2024, possibly being able to pick up their utilization as well. Just curious, kind of based on the visibility you have, what you're seeing from a competitive standpoint in your markets.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Yeah, Drew here. You know, the relative level of competition has been quite flat for the better part of two years and is relatively in line with what we saw in 2019. Obviously, the dynamics change a little bit, who it is and where it is, but the overall level has been remarkably consistent.

Savi Syth (Managing Director)

That's what you're seeing in the forward schedule, Drew?

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Correct.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

So you're just gonna you can't see capacity grow with the way fuel is, and, you know, fuel stays at this level, and there's a good argument to suggest it's been permanently changed given the, you know, environmental issues and what's going on in the world. Capacity can't grow that much if people are going to make money. It just doesn't work. You know, capacity's got to come out to raise fares to offset the fuel increases. So that's a macro statement.

Savi Syth (Managing Director)

That's negative for your model too, Maury, isn't it? Because you talk about leisure travel.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Well, yeah, I'm not going to sit here and say we're going to grow like a weed, but we have better opportunities to grow because we have less competition, I think. We're not facing a lot of headwinds that everybody else is with our 75% non-competitive, and that profile will continue, we believe, going forward. So, it's not a rosy picture for the industry. I'm not going to sit here and say it is, but you know, oil has to come down somewhat. It's the big variable we can all face.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

And further, so if you remember, we can pull our September capacity down to half of what we, we do in July as a reflection of the, the broader fuel environment, recognizing that demand is thick enough in the peaks to withstand the capacity, and we're going to withdraw it where it doesn't make sense, for all factors, including fuel. So I feel really good about how we think about capacity deployment in the face of persistent high fuel.

Savi Syth (Managing Director)

That makes sense. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question will be coming from Duane Pfennigwerth of Evercore. Your line is open.

Duane Pfennigwerth (Senior Managing Director)

Hey, thanks, Maury. Welcome back. Drew, maybe you could just expand on your RASM commentary. I think you made some statement like normal sequential change or normal seasonal change in RASM. Could you just expand on that?

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Yeah, I mean, just look back, I think I was leaving even, like, 2005 to 2019, sequential change in absolute RASM from Q3 to Q4, you know, seems to be the right barometer as we're looking at 2023. So hopefully that gets to what you were driving at.

Duane Pfennigwerth (Senior Managing Director)

Yeah, it just looks like it's up in 17-- or sorry, in 18 and 19, it looks like it's up sequentially. So I just want to make sure that's not, not what you're suggesting there.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

18 and 19 were definitely on the high end of if you look at it all, however many, 14, 15 years there. So I would expect something sequentially less than that, but in line, if you take a much bigger sample.

Duane Pfennigwerth (Senior Managing Director)

Okay. And then, taking just a step back, and I know you've got some of the team on the phone here, but early thoughts on Sunseeker ramp in 2024, what kind of top line and EBITDA margins we should be thinking about? I understand this could be a, you know, two to three year ramp, but maybe in year one, how you're thinking about it.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Micah, any comments?

Micah Richins (President)

Yeah, I think right now it's really too early for us to guide. We're happy now to just be announcing the date, being able to kick off our bookings and get going on the marketing. The real indicator, the only real indicator that we have right now is group bookings that are on the books, and we've got about 30,000 on the books and another 32,000 that are in-

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

[crosstalk]32,000 room nights.

Micah Richins (President)

Room nights, yeah. So that's probably the best leading indicator right now. We're still outside the booking window, and we'll know a lot more in about 90 days.

Duane Pfennigwerth (Senior Managing Director)

Okay. Well, good, good luck with the launch. Thank you.

Micah Richins (President)

Thank you.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Duane.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question will be coming from Scott Group of Wolfe. Your line is open.

Scott Group (Managing Director & Senior Analyst)

Yeah, hi, it's I think this is me. It's Scott. I think you called me. I just want to—Maury, you made a comment about, I get the seasonality in Q3. We see that. You made a comment about, like, Q4 is a lower margin this year. I wasn't sure I was following your point. Can you just maybe go back to that?

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Well, it just goes to the theme that we've got more in the way of off-peak flying, that we can't peak up as much as we have historically, because of just, you know, utilization, crews, all the things we've talked about. We're somewhat relearning how to do all this stuff, too, I might add, but our first priority this year was to make sure we ran a good operation. So we didn't—we got conservative and pulled back, you know, being pushy and edgy that we might have been in past times.

If you go back to 2019 versus 2018, we flew 8 hours a day, and we came out of—we only had, I think, like, 75 airplanes, down from 90 airplanes in 2018 when we moved out of the MDs, and we pushed the edge, and that saw dramatic benefits of being able to fly to push the utilization up. So those are the things we have to relearn, and we'll do that. That's one of our top priorities going into 2024 and beyond.

Scott Group (Managing Director & Senior Analyst)

Okay. And then just following up on that last question, like, can you just maybe be a little bit more, you know, explicit with what you're, what you're assuming for RASM or at least what that historical Q3 to Q4 absolute RASM trend should be? I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. And then, you know, in an environment where capacity is up mid-single digits next year, you know, any early thoughts how you're thinking about CASM for next year? Thank you.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Yeah, I'll take the first part. And maybe I missed something as I look around the table. Just, you know, taking the absolute RASM from Q3, the absolute RASM from Q4 historically, we've tended to step up a little bit, not by a huge amount, low singles. That's generally what I'm expecting. So not a year-over-year commentary, but simply an end-of-year sequential.

Greg Anderson (President)

Hey, hey, Scott, this is Greg, real quick. And, you know, I know we haven't put out quarterly guides, so we're getting there. You can kind of back into it with the Q4, but I think it might just be helpful, as to Maury's comment about, you know, the Q3 being the weakest seasonally for us and what you saw in the Q3 airline EPS. I just want to say that Q4 airline EPS, the midpoint of our guide, we expect it to be stronger than the Q3. Sometimes with the, the weighted average share count and what's happening on that side of the house and the lower overall share count that we have, kind of broad or highlights or it pronounces the swings.

But I just wanted to make sure that that came across, that we expect the Q4 airline EPS to be higher than the Q3. And then, sorry, BJ, I didn't mean to jump in there on your 24 costs question.

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

No, no, that's great. I mean, we're in the middle, Scott, of our budget process for 2024, so not ready to give a guide on CASM-ex for next year. And I'll just say there are a lot of moving parts around delivery of the Boeing aircraft, induction of those airplanes, having crew members ready, et cetera. But on kind of the capacity guidance that Drew put out there, we would expect CASM-ex to be up a little bit next year. I don't want to give a number yet.

Scott DeAngelo (EVP and CMO)

Okay. Thank you, guys. Appreciate the time.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question will be coming from Daniel McKenzie of Seaport Global. Your line is open.

Daniel McKenzie (Equity Research)

Oh, hey, thanks. Maury, welcome back here. A couple of questions. I guess the first is really a housecleaning question on Sunseeker. I know you don't want to elaborate on 2024, but at least for the Q4 here, does the full year EPS outlook include or exclude Sunseeker revenue? And then once it opens, you know, can you share what—at least what you're seeing today in terms of occupancy and booked room rates?

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

Hey, Dan, it's BJ. I'll start with the first question. The outlook on Sunseeker for full year 2023 does include some revenue, but it's very, very minimal, assuming that you're only open for two weeks out of the year, and you're just kind of barely opening. You're not expected to be at any kind of full run rate. So, there's some in there, but I wouldn't run away with that for 2024-

Daniel McKenzie (Equity Research)

[crosstalk]Mm.

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

Or 2023, sorry.

Daniel McKenzie (Equity Research)

Okay, all right. And then, you know, I guess, in terms of the occupancy room rates, I understand it's in there. And Drew, you know, going back to your commentary of peak periods being scheduled to aircraft and crew constraints, I am looking at the back half of December, and it looks like Allegiant's flying is down 14% year-over-year. So I guess a couple of questions tied to that. One, is that accurate? And then secondly, is that tied to constraints? And, you know, I'm just wondering if we should model these constraints extending into peak March 2024 flying as well, potentially.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

I think what you're capturing there is some of the shift in the holiday timing as well. So the, let's call it the third week of December, was a pretty meaningful capacity in December of 2022, as the travel started a bit sooner. That week comes down, I believe it's about 22%, and then you get a little bit of growth into the more peak, call it last, I don't know, 10 days or so of the month. So, I think a competitor called this out as well, but there will be a downshift in the mid part of December that's kind of captured on the upside in the beginning of January, that I think explains most of what you're seeing.

Daniel McKenzie (Equity Research)

Ah, I see. Okay, very good. Thanks for the time, you guys.

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

Thanks, Dan.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question for today will be coming from Conor Cunningham of Melius Research. Your line is open.

Greg Anderson (President)

Hi, everyone. I think you called me. As you think about load factor versus yields, you're not trying to talk about pricing, but just like from a high level, as you think into 2024, there seems to be a lot of discounting to fill seats. I'm just trying to, I'm just curious on how, on what you're viewing as the key priority in building revenue next year. Thank you.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, total revenue is, is the end game. I think you'll see yields be more resilient in the peaks, and then us making sure that we're capitalizing on, you know, $70 of total ancillary per passenger through the rest of the year, which is generally driven by load factor build, as a general rule of thumb. So, I would, you know, kind of separate those, those two elements, like that. But at the end of the day, we, we need to make sure that we're, we're maximizing, that, that ancillary component.

Conor Cunningham (Director of Travel and Transport Research)

Okay. And then, you know, on the, on the 1400 route comment that you had, all the opportunities going forward, I'm just, you know, you've, you've always had a lot of, a lot of opportunities. So I'm just... Your cost structure is obviously a lot higher, so just trying to understand how that, how that changes with, with, with a higher cost base. And then if you could just touch on where you sit with the pilots today on what's going on there, that would be helpful. Thank you very much.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Sure. On 1,400 routes, I mean, we're still extremely confident in that. You know, I think you have to strip it back a little bit into a fixed versus variable type of thought on that cost structure, right? And fuel, we'll see. I mean, that's as variable as it gets. But for the rest of the cost structure, you know, it still supports all of these 1,400 routes. As you know, the fixed cost portion will kind of take care of itself as we get back to utilization, we get back to growing again. But again, that's not how we think about new network deployment. It's all on a variable basis.

Greg Anderson (President)

... Hey, Conor, it's Greg. I might try and hit on a couple other parts there. On the cost, though, to Drew's point, keep in mind, we're accruing this year, at least beginning in May, accruing for an increased labor agreement with our pilots. But an increase in productivity of just a half hour in utilization for aircraft per day is worth, like, 0.5% of CASM-ex. So, so you have that, you know, that I think over time, I mentioned that we've invested in this infrastructure where the infrastructure has outpaced ASMs, but we're gonna get back there. And, you know, when we did these system cutovers, everyone has their day job, and these are massive system cutovers.

And so the philosophy was measure twice, cut once, get it done, but it's gonna allow us to scale and grow more efficiently. And then on the pilot side of the house, just the trends are meaningfully improving. Just to put that into perspective, in the first half of 2023, if you think about in a net new pilots, we were flat, whereas in the back half of 2023, we'll have over 100, or we expect over 100 net new pilots. And that's twofold. One, attrition is meaningfully down, but two, the, the classes are full and they remain full. And in fact, applications over the past couple of months have more than doubled.

And I think our shout-out to our flight ops team and the focus that they have and in their pathway programs and making sure that we're identifying the pilots that wanna be here at Allegiant. We have a unique quality of life offering overall, which is that out-and-back model. But the most important thing that we need to do, and I keep saying this, is we're working hard, and we're committed to getting a deal done for our pilots, for our flight attendants, and that's a key focus for us, and we'll carry that in and try and get that done as soon as possible.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Well, Conor, let me put an editorial on top of that. You can't understand the mindset inside of an airline in March, February, with the pilot issues going on. You know, you just didn't know what was gonna happen, particularly if you were in the middle of the sandwich like we were, where a lot of our guys are going up the hill to American, Delta, and United. And, you know, we literally trained 200 pilots in 2022 and kept 10. So a lot of expenses going in just to training these guys. But now that you're seeing the world, I mean, Spirit announced they're not hiring any pilots for 2024. I mean, there's a radical shift in mindset of how you can think about having access to crews.

You know, for us, we need to make sure we get, we need some extra crews, certainly for the Boeing as we transition. So we need to have that type of mindset, and it's there. To Greg's point, you know, get a contract done. Our pilots are very much on board with, you know, growing this business, and we're also being much more selective in who we bring into the business. We need to know that they wanna be in our model and wanna be here long term. Not to say we weren't selective before, but it was much more, could you fly an airplane than what are your personal needs? So, you know, those are the kinds of things we've learned from this effort.

Not only us, but everybody in this industry is gonna be much more comfortable that they can make a forecast on pilots and availability, so you can put a schedule out nine months from now and still operate it.

Conor Cunningham (Director of Travel and Transport Research)

Appreciate the thoughts. Thank you.

Greg Anderson (President)

Thanks, Conor.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will be coming from Andrew Didora of Bank of America. Your line is open.

Andrew Didora (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. Maury, welcome back. Maury and/or maybe Greg, just staying on the pilots here, what—where are you? Kind of, where do the negotiations stand right now? And if you can, just, you know, what are some of the key holdouts at this point?

Greg Anderson (President)

Hey, Andrew, it's Greg. So earlier this year, we combined with the union started mediation, the mediation process. And while we're progressing, candidly, it's not at the rate I'd like to see. So but we're still working through it, and you know, there's a variety of items we're working through. But we understand the important items that we need to get done and to get a competitive contract is paramount in our view. And I have all the confidence that we'll continue to make progress, and then we'll get a deal done.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, Andrew, just some practical applications. We're both at the table, young in our maturity in many ways in doing a contract. You know, this group of pilots has never been involved in negotiating a contract before, and so they're, I think, kind of feeling of their way forward as to what that they want to see in a contract, and you have proper people at the table that know how to do this. So, you know, United, American, Delta, have been 70 years. They have 500-page contracts that, you know, they don't have a lot to talk about. We've got a lot of items that are still young and tender and, and, you know, both sides need to feel their way through it.

So to Greg's point, it's been slower than we would have liked, but you know, we get the materiality and what we wanna do. But I think both sides are getting a little bit of deal fatigue, candidly, if I had to say so, just to get something done. And as we all know, this is not—these contracts never end. They're just extensions until you sit down and do it again three or four or five years from now.

Andrew Didora (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you. And then, as a follow-up, I know you spoke a little bit about the contracted deliveries for 2024. In that context, yeah, how should we be thinking about CapEx for next year?

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

Hey, Andrew, it's BJ. You know, we're involved in discussing some of this with Boeing. What I'll tell you is, in 2023, we were paying, you know, large amounts of predelivery deposits, substantially focused on aircraft delivering in 2024.

... And so you would see the same thing in 2024 for aircraft delivering in 2025, given the new schedule. I would expect CapEx to be elevated next year, versus 2023, but don't have a guide for you yet.

Andrew Didora (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question will be coming from Christopher Stathoulopoulos of Susquehanna Financial Group. Your line is open.

Christopher Stathoulopoulos (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. I'll keep this to one. Maurice, so I wanna understand, if you could, a little bit more on the composition of your 2024 capacity, with the idea here that not all capacity is created equal, comes with different margin profiles, et cetera. So I think you said 70%-75% of routes, non-competitive, 1,400 new domestic routes identified, and that you have a line of sight or are looking to get back to 2019 utilization levels. On the other side of the ledger, you know, mid-single-digit ASM growth is below what you've typically done.

So as we think about the moving pieces, and if you want to frame it, you know, departure stage and gauge or, however else, you know, is this about frequencies within existing dots, adding dots, a little bit of both? Just wanna understand here the moving pieces that makes up and builds into that mid-single digit capacity guide and that soft CASM x guide that you gave for next year. Thank you.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Hey, Christopher, Drew here. You know, probably a little early to get into all of those dynamics today. I think maybe speaking fairly generally, you know, I wouldn't anticipate seeing that utilization rebuild in the first half of the year with, with the flat ASMs. That, that probably goes without saying. As we bring on the Boeings, we will get a little bit of gauge benefit, as the 8-200s will come in, at 190 seats, which is larger than what we have today, by a little bit. You know, I don't, I don't foresee massive stage differences through the year, although we'll get back to you maybe on that in, in 90 days.

But I think as we think about the overall network, I would foresee a bit more frequency restoration coming earlier than new route announcements than you know kind of relative to our typical split before you know probably more of a late 2024, but really more of a 2025 and 2026 story on network expansion would be my guess at this point.

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

Hey, Chris, and then this is BJ. The main thing to think about for CASM next year is really just the full year of the pilot payroll cost and the full year of labor agreements that were implemented this year. You know, other than that, we don't have most of the other buckets moving so much on the capacity that Drew just outlined.

Christopher Stathoulopoulos (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question will be coming from Helane Becker of TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Helane Becker (Managing Director and Senior Advisor)

Thanks very much, operator. Hi, everybody. Welcome back, Maury. Just two maybe clarification questions. All your peers are calling out maintenance, and you didn't really mention that. Is there something ... I mean, what's different between you and them, maybe?

Robert Neal (SVP and CFO)

Hey, Helane, it's BJ here. I think one of the things is potentially that our heavy maintenance is capitalized, or we use a deferred method, and so you don't see the immediate impact of it, you know, in the period that the cash goes out. So there has been some pressure in heavy maintenance expense, not to the degree that, like, we've been hearing from some of the other carriers calls, but also expecting some pretty nice relief on that, as we move through 2024 and 2025, and those aircraft with the most expensive heavy checks will be retired prior to undergoing that maintenance.

Helane Becker (Managing Director and Senior Advisor)

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 been 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 you're going to see a fair step up in traffic there in addition to the holidays.

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Yeah. Thanks, Helane. You know, just because, you know, Vegas has seen, you know, incremental seats, does not, does not necessarily mean that Allegiant has seen incremental seats on top of ourselves into Vegas. You know, our routes and where we originate, customers tend to be pretty differentiated. 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, but we still maintain, you know, a really solid network differentiation here that I think kind of puts us on an island, if you will, there. In terms of F1, you know, I can have been a little wrong on this.

I went into it saying that it would probably be the worst week that Allegiant had ever had coming into Vegas. And luckily, that has not manifested. You've seen hotel pricing come down here looking at Scott DeAngelo, but you know, 50, 60% in places that I think is catering back toward away from the core F1 customer and more towards just, hey, a Vegas experience, and we'll have some fast cars going around the bend. So it'll be fine, but I wouldn't call it out as anything that I believe will be super special for us. Agreed.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. F1 is, Vegas is a midtown, mid-price town. It's not a high-end town, Monaco or something like that, and the hotel prices were starting off in stratosphere, and you can't blame them. They'd start there and then come down. But, you know, it's going to be a zoo here that weekend, but it's, you know, $20,000, $15,000 to get into the paddock, as they call it. You know, those are not the usual Vegas prices.

Helane Becker (Managing Director and Senior Advisor)

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 games.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

We'll put it on the list, Helane. That's a good idea.

Helane Becker (Managing Director and Senior Advisor)

All right.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

We can do that.

Helane Becker (Managing Director and Senior Advisor)

All right. All right. Thanks very much, you guys.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Good. Yeah.

Operator (participant)

One moment for our next question. Our next question will be coming from Catie O'Brien of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Catie O'Brien (VP, Lead US Airline & Aircraft Lessor, and Equity Research Analyst)

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 know sometimes there's a bit of a timing difference there. And I guess any thoughts on what the tailwinds are there going forward? Like, how should we think about, you know, 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 (EVP and CMO)

Thanks, Catie. This is Scott DeAngelo. So I'll take the first couple of parts there. So the way to think about it as a rule of thumb, about 75%-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, right, 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 at a high level.

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 should enable 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 claim tailwinds. Last point, we currently sit at about 3% of our loyalty program has the card.

Mature airlines, Delta and American, I believe, both made this public, were more in the 13%-14% of their loyalty program. So that gives you kind of an idea of what upside is there if these tailwinds, you know, above and beyond, you know, the traditional ASM growth, you know, can drive us there.

Greg Anderson (President)

And Catie, it's Greg. I just want to add one quick point to what Scott mentioned there, and that's that the network that we serve and the communities that we're in, so many of them, we're a really big deal, and our card is aspirational. They want that card, and it, 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.

Catie O'Brien (VP, Lead US Airline & Aircraft Lessor, and Equity Research Analyst)

That's great. And then maybe just one-

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

[crosstalk]Oh.

Catie O'Brien (VP, Lead US Airline & Aircraft Lessor, and Equity Research Analyst)

Oh, sorry.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Go ahead, Catie. Go ahead. No, go ahead.

Catie O'Brien (VP, Lead US Airline & Aircraft Lessor, and Equity Research Analyst)

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

Drew Wells (SVP and CRO)

Yeah, Catie, I think this is something we continually say, "Hey, we're, we'll, we'll dive into more detail at an Investor Day and, and really provide, some, some good stuff there," and, and we keep pushing the Investor Day. So I promise we'll get there at a future Investor Day. You know, in terms of, of occupancy, we, we tend to, to get buy-ups right around the 50% mark, you know, give or take, at, at a pretty meaningful, you know, unitized rev over, over any other seat. So we're, we're-- I think we've stated about $1 per passenger in the past, but I, I think that's, I, I think that might be a little bit conservative as we've, as we've seen continued growth.

Catie O'Brien (VP, Lead US Airline & Aircraft Lessor, and Equity Research Analyst)

Right. Maybe I'll just throw another location into the ring with Lane. I, I'd love to go see Sunseeker, so, keep us, keep us posted on that, Investor Day. Thanks, guys.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

All right.

Greg Anderson (President)

Thanks, Catie.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our last question for today is coming from Ravi Shanker of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Ravi Shanker (Equity Research Analyst and Managing Director)

Hi. Yeah, good afternoon, everyone. So A, Maury, welcome back, and B, kind of just wanted to follow up on something you said earlier about, how, you know, high jet fuel prices kind of, almost forces, capacity discipline across the industry. We have seen some indication of that on the three Q conference calls with, you know, 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, or do you think there's kind of still, a little bit of proof needed on kind of walking the talk there?

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

We've got, what, 30, 40 years of deregulation history, you know, bucking a new ten-year trend. If you want to take a comparable one, price of oil has gone up dramatically since February of 2022, 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, you know, saving, you know, investment and make some money. So you've seen behavioral 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 too 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. They've got a very well-rounded product. They've got, you know, a lot of debt on the balance sheet they want to pay down. So, you know, making good money the way they have is maybe becomes infectious. But long term, you know, making money is the name of the game, and what you've seen over the last three years, four years, is we've all been thrown out of our habits and what we've done historically. I think the American Delta and United have benefited, by, you know, kind of the stuff they did pre-pandemic and brought it to home here in the last few months and last year, with both international being so rich and with the ability to offer competitive products.

When you look at the ULCC, you know, market, as I said, they've got over a 90% overlap in their marketplaces. That's tough competition to go up against if you've got a comparable product that's sitting there with a well-known brand, that has a credit card, has all the, all the attributes. So, we like staying out of people's way, in doing those things. But as far as capacity growth, I think it's you're certainly not going to see kind of a wide open funnel, like we saw in the mid-teens and the like, in my mind. Could it get there a couple of years from now? Sure. But right now, I think everybody's a bit cautious and, you know, wants to bring it back slowly. And sitting on top of all this is ATC.

When you're being asked to cut your, your summer travel into New York City because ATC can't keep up, that's a big, big whack to your, your operation and your bottom line.

Ravi Shanker (Equity Research Analyst and Managing Director)

Always appreciate your thoughts. Thanks, Maury.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. There are no more questions in the queue, and I will now turn the call back over to Maury for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Maury Gallagher (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Thank you all very much for your time. Appreciate your interest, and we'll see you in 90 days. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for joining. You may all disconnect and have a great day.