Allegiant commercial service at Gulf Shores Airport starts May 21

Allegiant commercial service at Gulf Shores Airport starts May 21
Destinations: St. Louis, Knoxville, Houston, Fayetteville, Kansas City, Cincinatti

By Fran Thompson
Gulf Shores will celebrate what could be historic first commercial flights from Gulf Shores International Airport with a ribbon cutting and water cannon salute at 12:30 p.m. on May 21.
In partnership with Allegiant Air, the airport will offer commercial nonstop service to Houston, Knoxville, Cincinnati, St. Louis (Bellville), Kansas City and Northwest Arkansas (Fayetteville). The service is expected to bring an additional 40,000 to 60,000 tourists a year to Pleasure Island.
Although, the airline is currently accepting bookings through August, flights to Cincinnati and St. Louis are expected to ge offered year round. Flights to the other destinations are expected be seasonal. But the schedules are flexible and dependent on customer demand.
Hertz and Dollar rental car brands will offer rentals at the airport, and ParkMobile, which is already in use at Gulf Shores public beaches, will provide a convenient way for travelers to pay for parking. Additional new businesses are also preparing to launch operations at the airport, according to director Jesse Fosnaugh.
Expectations are that the airport will become a key transportation hub and a spur to economic development.
“We’re going to try those destinations out and see how they go,” said Allegiant VP Kristen Schilling-Gonzales. “Maybe those will do so well that we’ll decide to continue those onwards.
“We’ve been working on this for literally years. So, I love to say that it is a no-brainer, because we know that it would work for a long time. It is really the infrastructure that the community has really put forth that enabled all of these new routes to happen,” she added.
Gulf Shores Mayor Craft said other airlines want to offer commercial flights at the city’s airport, but the city will need to build a permanent terminal before that happens, and the airport will need to grow significantly before the FAA will make funding available to complete the temporary two gate, $8 million terminal the city built to accomodate Allegiant.
Two airlines – Elite and Sun Country – announced flights from Gulf Shores to Nashville and Minneapolis, respectively, in 2022. But those plans fizzled.
“This is going to impact our economy more than what we already have,” Mayor Craft added. “But it also gives people a way to get here and stay for shorter stays and not have to drive so far. Now people will have the time to come down and enjoy what they love about our area.
Gulf Shores was awarded a $5 million federal grant to support the construction of a new commercial terminal last August. City Council then approved a $3 million loan to the Airport Authority to complete the terminal’s construction. The new terminal was built with low operating and maintenance costs in mind and engineered for future expansion.
Gulf Shores’ journey into establishing commercial service at its airport started with a $5 million federal grant to build a landing pad to accommodate commercial aircraft and a $6.1 million federal grant to build its air traffic control tower back in 2021.
With numerous private and charter flights flying to and from Gulf Shores, the airport already ranks it as the second busiest in Alabama behind Birmingham-Shuttlesworth.
Gulf Shores Mayor Craft said other airlines want to offer commercial flights at the city’s airport, but the city will need to build a permanent terminal before that happens, and the airport will need to grow significantly before the FAA will make funding available to complete the temporary terminal being built now.
Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport in Panama City Beach, the airport that Gulf Shores can use as a comp, has exploded in growth over the past decade, and already boards more passengers than any commercial airport in Alabama outside the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.