How Damaging Will a 60 Minutes Report Be to Allegiant Air?
Photo Credit: A 60 Minutes piece on Sunday detailed safety problems at Allegiant Air. Many of the carrier's biggest issues have come on the MD-80, the aircraft pictured above. Allegiant Air
Skift Take
The 60 Minutes report on Sunday about Allegiant Air was solid, serious journalism. But it wasn't much of a surprise to industry insiders, who have known about the carrier's issues for awhile. Will executives have to deal with a wider fallout now?
Allegiant Air on Monday fought back against a potentially damaging television news story about its operations, saying a 60 Minutes report on Sunday produced a "one-sided narrative by cherry-picking interviews ignoring publicly-available facts."
But investors have shunned the airline's stock, pushing it down more than 12 percent since Thursday, as travelers have questioned on social media and elsewhere whether they should continuing flying the discount airline.
The 60 Minutes segment highlighted safety issues at the airline, focusing on a slew of miscues, including mid-air engine failures, smoke and fumes in the cabin, rapid descents, flight control malfunctions, hydraulic leaks and aborted takeoffs. During a less than two-year period, ending in October, Allegiant Air reported more than 100 serious mechanical incidents to the Federal Aviation Administration, while its aircraft made 60 unscheduled landings and reported 46 in-flight emergencies, according to 60 Minutes.
The mec
