Allegiant Air specializes in connecting smaller
communities to popular vacation destinations, often providing inclusive packages at
affordable prices. Today, we’re back onboard North America’s 14th-largest airline taking a
quick flight from Peoria, Illinois to Nashville, Tennessee. This trip had an unexpected hiccup
but thankfully, I had planned ahead and was able to work around it. So with that said, let’s
head to Peoria and get this journey started. It’s a cloudy summer evening at Illinois’
fourth-busiest airport. Despite Allegiant advising passengers to arrive two hours before boarding,
that’s honestly way too much time at smaller airports like this especially if you check in
online. I arrived two hours before departure time which was more than early enough but that extra
time would end up being helpful later on. I was through TSA PreCheck in quite literally one minute
and was soon airside in Peoria’s modern and clean terminal. Today, our flight to Nashville is the
last departure of the day so the only people here are those onboard this flight. With lots of spare
time, I walked over to the rather new terminal expansion because, for some reason, I prefer it
a lot more than the main terminal itself. The expansion houses gates 12 and 14 and despite not
being used at all these days, it remains open for anyone wanting to wait here for their flight.
Now Allegiant being a budget airline, restricts what you can bring onboard for free.
Carry-ons and checked bags must be paid for so if you are planning to bring those, pay for
them while booking your flight because they are cheapest then. Otherwise, each passenger
is entitled to one free personal item that must match these dimensions. Now, my backpack
here has passed as a personal item on both Spirit and Frontier which have the exact same
dimensions as Allegiant. But as you can see here, my backpack looks a bit too big and so here
you can really see one thing about Allegiant that makes them a bit more sneaky. If you’ve flown
Spirit or Frontier, you know that their bag sizers have physical slots that you can put your bag in.
These make it a bit easier to get away with your bag being an inch or two over the limit. But as
you can see here, Allegiant’s bag sizer is just a board so if your bag is even an inch over the
limit, you’re going to get caught. So, not wanting to risk paying extra, let’s see what I did next.
By this time, the airport had gotten a little busier with more people showing up
for the Nashville flight. As such, PreCheck took a little longer at three minutes
(oh no). Once I was back airside, I was able to see American Eagle’s Embraer 175 arriving from
Dallas, one of four aircraft that spend the night in Peoria. With my drawstring bag in hand, I made
sure it fit the requirements and as expected, it was good to go. So let’s quickly talk about this
route. Allegiant began Peoria to Nashville service surprisingly back in June 2020 during the height
of the pandemic. The route operates seasonally and has consistently performed very well as aside from
Nashville being popular for leisure travel, it’s a popular business destination from Peoria as well.
If you’ve seen my previous Allegiant video from when I flew their Peoria to Denver service, you
might recall that at the moment, the Nashville and Denver flights are served by the same aircraft.
As such, the plane first flies from Nashville to Peoria, then flies to Denver and back before
finally flying from Peoria back to Nashville. Allegiant begins boarding 45 minutes before
departure time which is interesting given American Airlines now boards their mainline
flights 35 minutes beforehand. Our flight was scheduled for boarding at 9:07 which is pretty
ambitious considering the inbound flight from Denver lands at 9:02. Needless to say, we didn’t
start boarding at 9:07 given that the inbound flight was still deplaning by that time. But then
again, that doesn’t really matter since Allegiant is a low-cost airline and these airlines are
absolute masters at quick turnarounds as you will see shortly. Allegiant is Peoria’s largest
airline, controlling over 50% of the market share. It’s great to see that both the Denver
and Nashville flights are doing very well, as demonstrated by how busy the gate area
was. Boarding started 10 minutes late and I was boarding in Zone 3. I still don’t know how
they determine zones since even though I didn’t pay for bags, I did reserve my seat but then
again I was seated toward the back. Allegiant’s A320 has 186 seats in an all-economy layout,
pretty standard for budget airlines as Frontier and easyJet have the same configurations on most
of their A320s as well. I’m seated in 27A which I reserved online for $14. I’ve covered these
seats many times before on Frontier and Spirit, okay comfort-wise but bare-bones overall
with a tiny table and netted seat pocket. The legroom is tight but I found it bearable for
this short flight and with a small bag in front. Above the seat are the usual passenger service
units including personal air vents. Overall, the cabin was clean but I don’t know what this
was on the side wall. It looked like someone had sneezed on it and this was never cleaned
but I tried not to pay much attention to it. The inflight service consisted of the usual
buy-on-board drinks and snacks and that was about it for the short time we were in the
air. There’s no WiFi or in-seat power so plan accordingly for longer flights as the only main
form of entertainment available is the inflight magazine which is pretty impressive that Allegiant
has one as a budget airline. I can’t think of any other low-cost airlines that have an inflight
magazine. My favorite part of the magazine though would have to be the route map. Like I’ve
mentioned before, Allegiant is actually an entire travel company so they specialize in selling
inclusive vacation packages and that’s made easier by the fact that they connect smaller communities
across America to vacation hotspots. Because the flight was so short and a bit turbulent, I can’t
remember if the seatbelt sign was ever turned off. I think we only cruised at 31,000 feet for
like 10 minutes before it was time for descent. I never realized just how short this flight
really was but I was overall excited to be flying into Nashville for the first time, that
too on this rather interesting flight. Our approach brought us in from the northwest before
turning base and coming in for landing on RWY 20L. My base fare for this one-way flight was $50
but adding on $14 for seat selection brought the total to $64. Not bad at all, I mean Allegiant
is a solid airline providing good value for both solo travelers and families alike. The crew on
tonight’s flight were great and very helpful and the early timeliness was pretty impressive too. I
overheard passengers on this flight saying things like “see you on the flight back” which really
highlights how Allegiant specializes in these vacation packages because when it comes to serving
smaller cities, Allegiant doesn’t serve them every day. They only serve them a couple of times a
week to ensure that you get a few days vacationing wherever before flying back.
I was impressed by how modern and spacious Nashville’s
new satellite concourse was. Even despite it being late at night with only one delayed flight
departing, there was still one convenience store that was open. Now I had always been under
the impression that an underground walkway or something was connecting the satellite concourse
to the main terminal but a few days earlier, I found out that there’s a shuttle service
that frequently runs between the two which from what I’ve seen, is pretty unique for
an airport in the U.S. If I’m not wrong, the shuttles seem to run 24/7 and
the ride takes around three minutes, giving you a free ramp tour along the way. The
shuttle drops you off in the C Concourse and there are plenty of signs that direct you to the
exits. But I won’t be leaving the airport tonight as I’ve got a few hours to spend here before
catching a 5 am American Airlines flight to Charlotte that you’ll see in a video very
soon. Thanks a lot for joining me tonight and I hope you enjoyed the video. Until next
time, take care, and see y’all again very soon.
