(RTTNews) - Leisure travel group Allegiant Travel Co. (ALGT: News ) reported Monday that profit for the third quarter soared from last year, boosted by strong revenue growth as well as higher operating margins. Earnings per share for the quarter climbed and topped analysts' expectations by five cents. The company also promoted its Managing Director - Planning and Chief Financial Officer Andrew Levy to also assume the additional title of president.

In a statement, chairman and chief executive officer, Maurice Gallagher, Jr. said, "We are pleased to report these very strong results in not only our historically weakest quarter, but also in what has been an exceptionally trying economic environment. Moreover these results were produced with a 47% increase in scheduled service departures over the third quarter of 2008."

The Las Vegas, Nevada-based parent company of Allegiant Air and Allegiant Vacations reported net income of $13.78 million or $0.68 per share for the third quarter that surged from $4.89 million or $0.24 per share in the year-ago quarter.

On average, eight analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected the company to post earnings of $0.63 per share for the third quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Total operating revenue for the quarter rose 13.9% to $133.11 million from $116.89 million in the same quarter last year, and topped three Wall Street analysts' consensus estimate of $130.45 million.

Operating income for the third quarter climbed to $21.94 million from $8.11 million in the prior-year quarter, while operating margin soared 9.6 percentage points to 16.5% from last year's 6.9%.
Total operating expenses was $111.17 million, up 2.2% from $108.77 million in the year-ago quarter.

For the third quarter, Allegiant's total system traffic was up 36.8% at 1.17 billion revenue passenger miles, or RPMs from 858.10 million RPMs in the year-ago quarter. Capacity rose 42.7% to 1.35 billion available seat miles, or ASMs from 946.37 million ASMs in the prior-year quarter. However, total system load factor was down 3.8 percentage points at 86.9% compared to 90.7% in the same quarter last year.

Scheduled Service traffic for the quarter rose 47% to 1.10 billion RPMs from 745.2 million RPMs in the year-ago quarter. Capacity rose 53.4% to 1.22 billion ASMs from from 794.73 million ASMs in the prior-year quarter. However, load factor declined 3.9 percentage points at 89.9% compared to 93.8% in the same quarter last year.

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