Bases, pay, training, hiring windows and the interview process — from dated sources.
Last updated August 2026 — dated facts carry their own as-of dates below.
Allegiant is a Las Vegas-headquartered ultra-low-cost leisure carrier with roughly 22 crew bases, most of them mid-size cities, and a business model built on out-and-back flying to leisure destinations. The employee value proposition is quality of life: verbatim from the careers page, "most of our trips are return home every night." Understand that model cold before you interview — it is what makes Allegiant genuinely different from other ULCCs, and it is what interviewers expect you to have researched. (Note the word "most": do not oversell home-every-night as a guarantee, because Allegiant itself doesn't.)
The big corporate story: Allegiant announced its acquisition of Sun Country on January 11, 2026 (roughly $1.5 billion including debt) and completed it on May 13, 2026. As of August 2026 the two airlines still operate independently on separate certificates, and post-merger careers messaging says both carriers "continue to operate independently today." The merger FAQ frames the deal as growth-designed with no reductions to front-line positions expected. You probably won't be asked about it — but don't be blindsided that Sun Country is now part of the company.
Hiring-window status (as of August 2026): OPEN — base-specific and continuous. Allegiant does not run a single annual national wave; postings appear per base, and aggregators showed hundreds of active FA listings in mid-2026, with St. Petersburg/Clearwater (PIE) among the highest-volume locations. The official careers page does not publish a live "bases now hiring" list, so which domiciles are open changes posting-by-posting — check allegiantair.jobs directly. The workgroup is small (~1,700 FAs under the TWU contract), so individual base postings can fill fast.
Baseline requirements, verbatim from allegiantair.jobs (checked August 2026): "at least 21 years of age," "High School diploma or equivalent," and "A minimum of one (1) year of direct customer service work experience is preferred" — preferred, not required. A valid passport and clean background check are cited across postings; confirm passport-validity specifics against the live posting, because no verbatim validity-duration language is published. You must be "available to train in Las Vegas for a minimum of 4.5 weeks."
And the industry-wide caution that applies here too: there is no flight-attendant flow-through to a mainline carrier. Flow-through is a pilot-program concept — no Allegiant FA job carries a guaranteed path to a legacy airline.
Allegiant operates roughly 22 mostly mid-size-city domiciles. The 2025–2026 operating-base list (Wikipedia-derived — verify against the specific posting): Allentown, Appleton, Asheville, Bellingham, Cincinnati, Destin/Fort Walton Beach, Des Moines, Flint, Fort Lauderdale, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Knoxville, Las Vegas, Nashville, Orlando/Sanford, Phoenix/Mesa, Pittsburgh, Provo, Punta Gorda, Sarasota, Savannah, and St. Petersburg/Clearwater.
The structural point: hiring is base-specific — you apply to the posting for the base you can actually live in. That is the opposite of the legacy-carrier model where you're assigned a base after training. Small-city bases are the draw for people who don't want to relocate to a hub, and interviewers probe whether your relocation/commute plan for that specific base is realistic.
No sourced detail exists on reserve length for new hires — flag it as an ask-at-interview item rather than trusting forum numbers.
Allegiant FAs are unionized under TWU Local 577 (~1,700 FAs), and the pay story is the contract: the first CBA in company history — a five-year deal, tentative agreement announced March 2024, then ratified with 90% yes on 97% turnout. It delivered immediate raises of 20–41.2% (average ~25%; top-of-scale +41.2%), then +3% per year in each contract year, ratification lump sums averaging ~$6,000 (minimum $1,500), an improved duty rig, a better 401(k) match, and a healthcare cost-share cap.
What we can't tell you: the first-year hourly rate. No verified published new-hire rate exists. Aggregators (2026) show all-seniority averages — Glassdoor ~$28.31/hour, Payscale ~$24.88/hour, Salary.com ~$33/hour — and none of those is a first-year rate, so we won't pretend otherwise. The first-year rate is set by the TWU CBA; per candidate reports, Allegiant presents pay in the group-interview info session, so you will hear real numbers before you commit. Note also that the CBA's +3%/year steps mean any rate you find online decays annually.
Pay mechanics: per flight hour like the rest of the industry, but the 2024 CBA's improved duty rig increases pay for total duty time — a genuine differentiator worth knowing exists, without inventing figures for it.
Reserve reality: the out-and-back network means far fewer overnights than network carriers, so reserve and line life are mostly home-based. There is no sourced detail on how long new hires sit reserve — unverified, ask at interview. (January 2025 staffing-model changes were reported in one analysis, but details are unverified and we won't characterize them.)
Benefits per the careers page (checked August 2026): unlimited space-available flights on Allegiant for the employee plus dependents, with buddy passes and interline access for small fees.
Allegiant Air flight attendants must be at least 21 with a high school diploma or equivalent; prior customer-service experience is preferred but not required.
Requirements change between hiring windows — confirm them on the Allegiant Air careers page before you apply.
Data compiled from airline careers pages, union publications, industry press, and candidate-reported interview intel — wave-dependent facts carry as-of dates. Candidate reports are unofficial; confirm requirements on the airline's own careers site.