Allegiant Air executives said they are working hard to fix ‘operational challenges’ in the wake of a spate of recent maintenance issues resulting in several emergency landings.
In a conference call with analysts Allegiant’s newly appointed chief operating officer Jude Bricker said the operational mishaps are in part down to its rapid growth.
"We are taking a lot of new airplanes and they have been slow to come up to the fleet average reliability and we will still work through those issues for the remainder of the first and second quarters" of 2016," said Bricker.
Bricker also acknowledged pilot training programs needed to keep pace.
"We continue to struggle with crew availability as our training pipeline tries to catch up with fleet growth," he said, according to a SeekingAlpha.com report.
However the highly publicized operational difficulties, which included emergency landings caused by engine failures and faulty air conditioning units, has not impacted performance so far.
"Fourth-quarter revenue was not affected by fourth-quarter operations," Bricker said.
"As I tell our people, the systems are set up to deal with problems. We have invested tremendously in safety systems over the last few years," added the airline’s CEO, Maurice Gallagher Jr.
"We are reporting our best fourth quarter ever after our best year ever," Gallagher said.
