As millions get set to travel for the US Thanksgiving holiday this week, I thought it be a timely edition of Very Niche! to feature a niche airline.

Yes, they exist!

While much of the growth news in US aviation tends to be around continued consolidation and optimization among the Big 4 airlines (American, United, Delta, Southwest), there are smaller players jockeying for their own piece of the pie by taking a…you guessed it…niche strategy.

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Particularly interesting is budget airline Allegiant Air.

Their niche: direct flights to vacation destinations.

On the surface, it doesn’t sound like anything that the big airlines don’t already offer, but a closer look reveals the white space they’ve found in the market.

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Allegiant’s focus:

• Leisure travelers (not business)
• From rural markets (not large metro areas)
• To secondary airports near vacation destinations (e.g. Ft Lauderdale instead of Miami, Orange County instead of Los Angeles)

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With such a narrow remit, you end up with direct routes like:

• Central Illinois Regional Airport to Mesa, Arizona
• Rickenbacker Airport in Columbus, Ohio to Key West, Florida
• Appleton, Wisconsin to Orange County, California

A legacy carrier wouldn’t dream of these types of routes, given their hub/spoke model.

But a precise positioning gives rural families and other leisure travelers the ability to get where they want to go on a nonstop flight.

And for those seemingly obscure nonstop routes, there’s no direct competition, making their value prop pretty undeniable.

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You might be wondering - but is that really sustainable? How much demand is actually out there?

To that, check out these 30 new routes announced just last week.

And further, Allegiant’s COO David Wells told ThePointsGuy.com that there are 1,400 more routes that could serve their model quite well, going on to say:

“Migration patterns are crazy in the U.S. People are frequently moving from one area to others, and creating new opportunities all the time. There’s a great opportunity for Allegiant that exists.”

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The lesson for us in all this:

The well-treaded waters are nearly impossible to enter, much less survive.

But an intentionally narrow market position can lead you to pockets of demand simply not served by the broader market.

And guess who can cater specifically to a niche segment’s needs, even better than the market leaders?

A small, nimble shop.

Just like yours.

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💡

-Wes