Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q4 2020 Allegiant Travel Company Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentations, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star then one on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star then zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker for today, Sherry Wilson. You may begin.
Thank you, Kunda. Welcome to the Allegiant Travel Company's fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings call. On the call with me today are Maurice Gallagher, the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, John Redmond, the company's President, Greg Anderson, our EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Scott Sheldon, our EVP and Chief Operating Officer, Scott DeAngelo, our EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Drew Wells, our SVP of Revenue and Planning, and a handful of others to help answer questions. We will start with some commentary and then open it up to questions. The company's comments today will contain forward-looking statements concerning our future performance and strategic plan. Various risk factors could cause the underlying assumptions of these statements and our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements. These risk factors and others are more fully disclosed in our filings with the SEC.
Any forward-looking statements are based on information available to us today. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of future events, new information, or otherwise. The company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which may be based on assumptions and events that do not materialize. To view this earnings release, as well as the rebroadcast of the call, feel free to visit the company's investor relations site at ir.allegiantair.com. With that, I'll turn it over to Maurice.
Thank you, Sherry, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. First, let me thank all of our team members, their spouses, and families as we continue to fly through these difficult times and carry our passengers to their destinations. Thank you again for all your hard work and dedication. Last quarter, we were able to report some optimism. I qualified my statement at that time by saying some. This time I can say more in the terms of optimism. As it turned out, though, we were a little more bullish on the call last quarter than we were able to deliver. Nevertheless, we had noticeable improvements over that quarter.
My hats off to Drew Wells and his team, as they had to navigate their way through the increased COVID problems in November and December, did an excellent job maneuvering us through the declining demand during those months. To that end, we flew 2,200 fewer flights during this quarter, or 9% less than what we did in the third quarter. We saw our unit revenue numbers go the right way, up. Some numbers, passengers increased overall 7%. Load factor increased by nine points to 58%. Average fare increased 15% to $110, up from $96. TRASM was up 30% with that combination to $0.073. Total revenues were up a total of $46 million, and I'm happy to say we were EBITDA positive during the quarter, our first one for the year. Well, I guess we may have been there first quarter.
Again, we did this with 2,200 fewer flights. While we still have a way to go, TRASM in 2019 was just over $0.11, we are making excellent progress. On the balance sheet front, we improved our position from 2019, even with the pandemic sandwiched in the middle. Our cash closed up over $200 million at year-end 2020, and while we raised $150 million of new debt in the past few months, our net debt was essentially flat year-over-year. We were one of the few airlines to not approach the equity markets during these difficult times, we've generated the equivalent of equity raises, as I said before, via our NOL refunds. We have one coming in the not-too-distant future of $147 million, that will add nicely to the cash balances.
Adding this total to our $685 million year-end cash balance, this gives us over $800 million of cash equivalents or a $320-some million increase over our balance at the end of 2019. Can't tell you how proud I am of this management group. Not only did they do a marvelous job during the down days last spring and summer, just as important, they have positioned the company to take advantage of the disruption we're seeing in the industry in the coming year and thereafter. We've leaned out the company during the past year. It will show in our CASM-ex going forward. In difficult times, difficult decisions are required. Scott DeAngelo and his team, working with our IT group, has revamped our website and mobile app, making both more user-friendly, particularly the mobile portion. We are seeing meaningful uptakes in our packages and other products.
It was turned on in the last month, and while we are still learning how to use it and what to do with it, the initial response has been positive. Scott will have more comments in a moment. Our model continues to be a key to our success. It provides us with amazing flexibility to go in either direction. To shrink dramatically as we did this past April, we were down almost tenfold, if you can believe that, year-over-year in capacity. To lead the industry in total capacity available for sale as we did in 2020. Our ASMs were only down 19% for the year, and in the back half of the year, the last two quarters, we were only 13% down for that period. The team has developed an independent forecasting tool as well to help us gauge where demand is going.
Year-over-year comparisons and using that to see where we're at does not work. For the past three or four months, we've been looking at a number of data components to attempt to understand demand. These data points include our weekly survey and other meaningful metrics that show activity, what people are doing to correlate to future air travel. We are comfortable this is a good marker for the future travel, and this is pointing as well up to the right, so much so that we believe it's time to step on the gas. You heard an announcement a couple of weeks ago of our 21 new routes. We see opportunity and we want to act on it. We will now use this flexibility we have in our system to grow the company in the coming months. We have the aircraft and sufficient crews to allow us to increase capacity.
While we felt we had to reduce staff this year, looking backwards, including laying off some of our crews, I'm happy to report we'll be asking these crew members to return to duty shortly. We see excellent opportunities in 2021 and in the follow-on years. We believe those increasing revenue numbers I summarized for the last quarter will carry over into Q1 and beyond. U.S. airline industry will struggle for a number of years to come, particularly with respect to the business and international traffic. I believe we are in a better place during this time. As an example, we are forecasting a growing capacity, and Drew will talk about this, of up a half a percent to up 5.5% for Q1 compared to our 2019 Q1. Most other carriers are either down or 35% or more for the same period.
Why are we able to separate so much from the others in the coming months? Once again, we are showing you the benefit of our model, in particular our focus on flying on peak days or, said differently, not flying on off-peak days. The remainder of the industry has historically operated seven days per week and has utilization as a result of 11-12 hours per day per aircraft. Our approach, focusing on peak days or when our leisure customers want to travel, has us only flying our aircraft an average of 6-7 hours per day with that pattern. Today, the industry appears to be matching our approach, given leisure traffic is all that's moving. Namely, they have stopped flying on the Tuesdays of the week. Hence their 35% reduction or more compared to the same period in 2019.
There's a good reason for them not to fly on Tuesday, namely minimal business traffic. The industry is rationalizing their offerings to customers available, the leisure customer, and the leisure customer, for the most part, does not move on Tuesday or Wednesday. This is advantage Allegiant, in my opinion. As I like to say, the other guy is playing our game. With our focus exclusively on domestic leisure traffic and on our flexible model and with our excellent cost structure, we should emerge from this fray better than most in the coming 12- 24 months. Lastly, our team members have been the true heroes in our world, and I want to thank them again personally, each and every one, for all they have been doing during these trying 10 months. You are the backbone of this company.
In the meantime, in the airline space, we will take care of business. We are the survivors with a great company and an excellent business model. John?
Thank you, Maurice. Good morning, everyone. We're fortunate that our model and history of flying domestic leisure customers, we don't have to sit here today and predict the timing of vaccination rollouts. There are events that are happening beyond our control. We are all aware of the benefits and future upside. We have been laser-focused on what we can control, which is cost, capacity, capital, and network, which leads to deleveraging and balance sheet improvement. Without giving specific guides, I thought it might be helpful to provide some directional data points to help you understand how we see things in 2021. These directional guides assume no significant changes to the environment we are operating in today. With all the hard work and difficult decisions, we have pulled roughly $75 million in structural changes out of our cost structure using 2019 as the baseline.
A difficult but impressive number, especially for an ultra-low-cost carrier. As a result, our CASM-ex for full year 2021 should be less than Q1 2021. Greg will provide some commentary on Q1 2021 CASM-ex. Given that our best results and margins are ahead of us, not behind. Our interest expense will be lower in 2021 and 2022 than 2019. I don't think another airline can make such a statement. Our capacity will be up in every quarter in 2021 versus same quarter 2019. Drew, of course, will give a little more color on Q1 2021. We expect to be EPS positive in the first quarter of 2021. Our net debt each quarter end of 2021 will be less than year-end 2019. All these directional guides assume no significant changes to the environment we are operating in today.
In regards to Sunseeker Resort, we will not invest any more meaningful capital. We remain incredible believers in the thesis and future opportunities and continue to explore other options, including other equity investors and/or non-recourse project financing. The resort is far more valuable built out and provides greater flexibility and more options than how it sits today. We have had and continue to have numerous discussions about the art of the possible with various interested parties. We have never been more excited about the future potential of the airline and intend to grow in 2021 and beyond. The release has a chart showing the fleet growing to 108 planes by year-end. The aircraft acquisition opportunities are generational, and we intend to take advantage of that. Greg will provide a little more color about our fleet count in his commentary.
In my 41 years of working, I've never been more excited about the year ahead of us. The opportunities in 2021 and beyond are significant and achievable, especially at a time when the market for planes has never been better. We all understand how terrible and devastating this pandemic has been, but this management team has stepped up in a significant way, refined our business model quickly and aggressively, which is allowing us to recover faster than anyone. I would be remiss by not taking a moment to thank each and every one of our valued team members. The continuing effects of the pandemic or staying at home have not deterred anyone from performing at the highest level, which is why we find ourselves in the position we are today and with the brightest future. To steal a line from Tina Turner, you are simply the best.
With that, I'll turn it over to Scott DeAngelo.
Thanks, John. In 2020, our commercial approach continued to stay disciplined by executing against our data-driven recovery roadmap, which enabled us to do multiple things. We reduced marketing costs while still capturing a disproportionately high share of the leisure travel demand that did exist in the markets we serve. We continued building out transformational capabilities in the digital commerce and customer loyalty areas. Ultimately, we laid the groundwork to enter 2021 well-equipped to drive a faster and stronger recovery in the post-pandemic leisure travel era. Our direct-to-customer distribution model continues to allow us to stay close to what our customers are saying and how our customers are behaving. As recently as Sunday, more than half of the customers who responded to our weekly survey said they plan to travel this spring, and nearly two-thirds said they plan to travel this summer.
While we appreciate that the situation and customer sentiment will continue to be fluid, it's noteworthy that flight searches at allegiant.com for the next month, for key spring break weeks, and for Memorial Day week are near or above prior year levels overall. Both searches and bookings continue to show relative strength for destinations like the beaches along Florida's West Coast and Panhandle, as well as other small and midsize cities nationwide that serve as gateways to national parks and outdoor recreation, what we've marketed as Nonstop to Nature. Though it obviously continues to fluctuate by season, on average since last March, about a third of our booked customers said they traveled to visit friends and relatives, more than 25% stayed in hotels, nearly 20% stayed in a vacation rental, and more than 20% flew between their primary residence and a second vacation home.
Total web traffic to allegiant.com in 2020 was down by 26% versus 2019. But the absolute number of visitors coming the most direct and lowest cost ways, either by entering the allegiant.com URL in their browser or by clicking on a link in our marketing emails, was actually flat versus 2019. While visitors coming from higher cost and less direct ways, search engine marketing and OTA digital advertising, were down 40%-60%. In 2019, we pointed to our $3.30 per booking sales and marketing cost as an industry-leading benchmark. Yet in 2020, we reduced that same cost on a per-booking basis by nearly 50% for the year and by nearly 75% during the past three quarters.
This was achieved in two fundamental ways: strategically, by leveraging marketing analytics to create market-specific models for optimizing our mix of fixed cost and variable cost activities, and also tactically, by restructuring contracts and reworking plans across our advertising, e-commerce, and loyalty functions. We also continued to do more with less, thanks to aggressive co-marketing efforts with our great airport destination and hotel partners. Continuing to strengthen our existing relationships and build new ones with entities in and around the leisure travel space remains central to our philosophy as a leisure travel ecosystem player. We believe that pooling marketing dollars and brand equities with these partners is the winning approach for maximizing the capture of demand as it returns to the markets we collectively serve.
For the final portion of the marketing 2020 recap, the back half of the year saw unprecedented awareness of the Allegiant brand as Allegiant Stadium played home to four nationally broadcasted NFL games, including the season's most-watched Monday Night Football and most-watched Sunday Night Football games, the latter of which finished in the top 10 most-watched TV shows of any kind in 2020. We've commented before that our goal for Allegiant Stadium wasn't that people would see the stadium and instantly book a flight. Rather, it was that the heightened awareness driven by Allegiant Stadium's millions of exposures and billions of impressions would help drive increased efficacy across all other marketing tactics. A dynamic best exemplified by our email marketing program, where flight deal marketing emails sent on the days of and after Raiders home games at Allegiant Stadium drove year-over-year web traffic increases of more than 30%.
Looking forward, while our marketing approach for 2021 remains balanced, our primary focus will be to win back customers who flew with us in 2019 and early 2020, but have not flown with any airline since the pandemic began. Based jointly on proprietary behavioral data and consumer research, we estimate this group to represent 1.9 million customers who accounted for more than $880 million of revenue in 2019. Based on recent survey data, 40% of this customer group says they expect to book air travel at some point in the next six months, and virtually all of them say that Allegiant will be considered for that trip. As such, we remain vigilant by tailoring our communication with this group of customers and measuring our success at winning back the potential revenue their future travel represents as they reenter the market.
When they do return to allegiant.com, they'll be welcomed by our newly redesigned website, which we rolled out two weeks ago after extensive parallel testing versus our legacy website, show that the enhanced user experience drove sustained levels of improved conversion, higher ancillary take rates, and as a result, larger transaction sizes. While the lift to air and air ancillary offerings is driving strong initial returns, overhauling the technical foundation of our leisure travel platform affords us new degrees of freedom in selling beyond the aircraft by enhancing our abilities to integrate and showcase increased levels of hotel inventory, along with other travel products in the future, such as vacation rental properties and Allegiant Stadium travel packages.
Already, we're seeing improved attachment rates for hotel and rental car, a function not only the improved digital experience, but also the greatly reduced consumer web search and OTA traffic I referenced earlier. Also, you may recall nearly 85% of our customers say that air is the first purchase they make as part of their travel planning, which means we're the first to know where they're going, putting us in prime position to present them with hotel stay and rental car offers before anyone else. We believe the new allegiant.com exhibits not only industry-leading features and functionality, but also incorporates leading internet retail elements to form the foundation for improved product merchandising, personalized recommendations, and third-party advertising as we continue to expand as a holistic leisure travel provider.
While the new allegiant.com is the first to roll out, it's not the only major new commercial capability that we focused on developing during the past year. Our fully redesigned mobile app, which mirrors the improved website's user experience, is planned to launch in the first half of this year and can also be expected to drive meaningful impact given that about 20% of total bookings now come through the mobile app. Because it now will include the instant credit approval functionality that enables users the opportunity to apply, be instantly approved, and use the Allegiant World Mastercard to book. While that'll be new to the app, our website has featured this functionality for years, and it's the leading method for acquiring new cardholders.
Speaking of the Allegiant World Mastercard, in addition to winning USA Today's Readers' Choice Award as the best airline co-branded card for a second straight year, nearly half of our cardholders flew with us during 2020, averaging more than three and a half itineraries each at above transaction sizes that reflected their higher air ancillary and third-party product take rates. Finally, our loyalty focus will be considerably expanded by the introduction of our first-ever non-credit card rewards program planned to launch later this year pending both technical and strategic considerations. In summary, our continuous monitoring and assessment of the COVID-19 situation, along with its impact on consumer travel attitudes and behaviors, are informing if, how, and where we market today while we continue building rich commercial technical capabilities that are laying the foundation for Allegiant's recovery and growth tomorrow. With that, I'll turn it over to Drew Wells.
Great. Thank you, Scott, and thanks everyone for joining us this afternoon. All things considered, I'm very pleased with the cadence of revenue results from the depths of the pandemic, especially considering the level of flying we've been able to maintain. Our yield and load factor metrics steadily improved over the third quarter, and in absolute terms, our fourth quarter revenue performance of down 46.5% year-over-year was about 7.5 points better than the third quarter. We are further encouraged by our ancillary portfolio remaining in line with prior year, and per passenger was down just three-quarters of a percent for the quarter while 2020 was up 3% year-over-year. Our fourth quarter scheduled service ASMs were down approximately 14% as we flew heavily during the high-demand weeks and cut significantly during the lower-demand weeks, as mentioned in the previous call.
This approach persists into the first quarter as January flight levels were quite low, while we are looking to fly decidedly more in the latter higher-demand half of the quarter. Despite January ASMs being down roughly 16% versus 2019, we believe that first quarter ASMs will be between +0.5% and +5.5% versus 2019 levels of flying. Our low cost, high flexibility model allows us to pull down capacity while setting us up well to operate when demand exists. As a matter of example, our typical Sunday has seen about 260 flights while we haven't had a single scheduled Tuesday flight yet this year. Over the last several years, we have worked to increase resiliency through a diversified array of origination and destination profiles.
Some of this is evident in the route expansion over the last 90 days, with 36 routes in five new cities, including more non-traditional Allegiant destinations like Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This is assisted by the success of Scott D. and team's rollout of the Nonstop to Nature campaign, which has not only provided a new avenue for us to pursue immediate and future network growth, but also enabled us to unlock more potential out of the existing structure.
We believe with the success of these route announcements and marketing campaigns that we can continue to evolve the definition of the Allegiant network from solely serving the largest leisure destinations to serving any leisure-oriented market, a definition that is changing as rapidly as the world around us. We have a runway of over 1,000 markets that encompasses a bevy of origination and destination profiles and will make us a more resilient and stronger airline in the future. Our fleet team has done a remarkable job to put us in the driver's seat toward the back half of 2021. Their efforts enabled us to announce yesterday that we will open our Des Moines crew base in July, which will allow us to further develop our mid-continent basing strategy. We will now have the ability to grow the second half nearly 20% versus 2019 levels, such that demand dictates that growth.
We will also have the ability to strategically replace fleet with already secured aircraft if the revenue environment does not pick up in earnest. We believe that we continue to be in a great position to capture revenue upside when and where it is manifesting. Expanding our network and fleet only further solidifies that position. I am looking toward the future with cautious optimism, knowing what we are capable of achieving while ensuring we are practical about our short-term realities. With that, I'd like to pass it over to Greg.
Thank you, Drew. Good afternoon, everyone. 2020 has truly reinforced our core belief in the incredible value of the flexibility inherent in our business model. Our low-cost, low-utilization model has allowed us to reasonably adapt to the unprecedented time of a low-fare, low-demand environment. On the fortunate side, we have benefited from the fact that flexibility has always been the bedrock of our model, but the pandemic environment has further highlighted its value. I think it's worth noting a few points to illustrate this. After adjusting for special charges and for the benefits of the CARES Act, we produced a full-year 2020 positive EBITDA of $35 million. Our full-year adjusted unitized cost decreased by 6% despite a decrease in capacity of 18%. These are pretty impressive full-year results given the circumstances. For the fourth quarter, our daily bookings averaged just under $2.5 million.
This translates into $225 million in passenger revenue. Sequentially, this compares favorably with an increase of 23% quarter over third quarter and a jump of more than 93% versus second quarter. While bookings ebbed and flowed throughout the fourth quarter, we are pleased to see strength as we moved into the peak holiday season. The result, we produced positive adjusted EBITDA, another key milestone we've reached on the road to recovery in the fourth quarter. We remain encouraged with recent trends as January averaged approximately three and a half million in bookings per day, with consistent improvements building throughout the month. On the cost front, our adjusted operating expense for the fourth quarter, which excludes special items, was down 30% year-over-year, despite a capacity reduction of only 15.6%. This translates into an adjusted CASM-ex for the quarter of just over $0.0607.
This is well below $0.0674 averaged during the fourth quarter of 2019 and also below 2019's full-year CASM-ex of $0.0648. Turning to the balance sheet, and as noted in earlier calls, defending our balance sheet has been one of our top financial priorities throughout the pandemic, and we are pleased with the results to date, achieved without issuing any equity or participating in the CARES loan program. We ended the year with just under $700 million in cash, and when adjusted for the NOL carryback refunds of approximately $150 million, our pro forma liquidity would have been around $850 million. We have already filed our refund claims with the IRS and expect to receive the cash within the coming months. During the fourth quarter, we spent roughly $100 million on three aircraft and three engines, only one of which we decided to include seller financing.
This is $30 million less than we expected as two late-year aircraft acquisitions shifted into 2021. We ended the year with 20 unencumbered aircraft. Additionally, we ended 2020 with $1.65 billion in total debt, which reflected a fourth-quarter increase of $150 million in debt proceeds, offset by roughly $60 million in principal payments. Our net debt of $975 million is roughly flat when compared to year-end 2019 and would be more than 13% lower if pro forma for the remaining $150 million in NOL refunds. Looking at 2021, we have received the first half of the $92 million allocated to us as part of the second round of the federal payroll support for PSP2. As a reminder, the entire amount issued to us is a grant as it falls below the $100 million threshold that requires a loan and warrants.
We expect our full-year 2021 total CapEx to be roughly $200 million, the majority driven by aircraft acquisitions, which we will touch on in a bit. Additionally, we expect our total debt payments to be roughly $225 million, $175 million in scheduled principal payments, with the remaining being interest, an expected decrease in interest expense of 30% versus 2019. Based on current booking trends and given our amortizing debt, we expect to further reduce our net debt position during 2021. We have no intention of tapping the equity markets. Capital raises in 2021, if any, would likely be targeted in the debt markets associated with opportunistic aircraft acquisitions. Excluding the benefits from PSP2, we expect 1Q21 CASM-ex to be down between 4%-5% from 1Q19, this is based on the midpoint of our 1Q21 capacity guide that Drew just mentioned.
We expect the first quarter to be the high point of 2021, in part due to some carrying costs and adding back labor and mobilizing maintenance to get our previously parked aircraft ready to fly. The remaining quarters of 2021 should see CASM-ex come in below the first quarter based on similar capacity levels. However, if the demand environment were to support us raising capacity on a normalized utilization profile with our 2021 fleet plan, we should be in the low sixes and perhaps flirting with the five handle on our CASM-ex for the respective remaining quarters. These expected improvements to our CASM-ex are driven in part by the $75 million in annual operating cost savings John mentioned.
These structural cost savings include about $25 million in labor, $15 million in marketing, $15 million in IT, $15 million in non-airline, and $5 million in other. You may note the total amount is consistent with the $75 million we outlined last quarter. The labor savings has been reduced by $15 million due to the recalling of our pilots. The adjustment has been offset by the savings in non-airline costs, which I will touch on momentarily. On a quick and exciting note, we are positioning ourselves to hire pilots in the back half of 2021 to support potential 2022 growth. Back to the non-airline real quick. As a result of the pandemic, we permanently closed our family entertainment centers and liquidated nearly all of the associated assets. These actions became necessities due to the impact of the pandemic and our cost-saving strategy.
I want to make a point to acknowledge the hard work of all of our Nonstop team members for building that enterprise and for their tremendous efforts and support through the transition. Regarding Teesnap. At the onset of the pandemic, we restructured the business with the goal of making it 100% self-sufficient. I am pleased to report over the past nine months, Teesnap has been cash flow positive, producing a double-digit EBITDA margin on almost 50% increase in net revenue from 2019. In late 2020, we started rerunning a process to sell the business. I just want to also add my deepest appreciation to our Teesnap team members for the remarkable turnaround they have accomplished, particularly during this unusual time. Turning to fleet, we ended 2020 with 95 aircraft in operation, and our current fleet plan has us ending 2021 with 108 in-service aircraft.
This is based on firm signed agreements. The aircraft growth in 2021 is achieved by returning three aircraft previously parked to service, adding five aircraft signed up pre-COVID, 6 aircraft signed up since the onset of the pandemic, offset by one aircraft retirement. All added aircraft, excluding one, will come in at 186 seats. As we look forward into 2021 and beyond, we are not burdened with a costly fleet order, which means we can maintain enormous fleet flexibility to sign up aircraft at our discretion and at prices well-discounted from pre-COVID levels. We continue to explore a significant number of opportunistic aircraft deals. Based on leading indicators, we believe our 2021 fleet plan supports the appropriate number of aircraft for both our short and long-term growth plans.
If we encounter a situation where the environment does not support our plan, we have a built-in safety valve as up to 20 aircraft could be moved to retirement status, also avoiding costly heavy maintenance visits. One metric we continue to keep an eye towards is restoring our industry-leading $6 million in annual EBITDA per aircraft. We believe our future fleet profile may help serve as a catalyst in getting us back to there as we increase our proportion of 186-seat aircraft, which is the highest EBITDA-producing variant in our fleet. To close, we believe strongly that we are positioned to thrive in a post-pandemic world. Our ability to flex up and down in any environment will continue to serve us well moving forward, adjusting for passenger demand and helping mitigate any further volatility on the path to recovery.
Being as well-positioned as we are would, of course, not be possible without each and every one of our more than 4,000 team members. I'd be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to not only thank them, but to highlight, and for the benefit of everyone listening to this call, the importance of their work. From our frontline and operational crews, who are so incredibly dedicated to ensuring every passenger can travel safely and seamlessly every day, to our team members working tirelessly behind the scenes that make us strong, creative, and strategic. Please know that your work, all the extra hours, preparation, and efforts, does not go unnoticed, and please know how much it is appreciated.
You are the greatest reason we have been so well-prepared to meet the challenges of the pandemic in this uncertain environment, and it's because of you we will continue to be prepared for anything the future might bring. We can't thank you enough. With that, we'll turn it over to questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask the question, you will need to press star, then one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Again, that's star one to ask the question. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, please. Our first question comes from the line of Joseph DeNardi with Stifel. Your line is open.
Oh, great. Thank you. Maybe for Scott DeAngelo, there's been a lot of talk about pent-up demand. What are you seeing or hearing from your customers to support or maybe not support that notion? Are you asking customers whether they plan on devoting more wallet share to travel post-COVID, or that they'll travel more post-COVID than they did pre-COVID because they've been unable to? Are you seeing any of that or the opposite?
We're hearing that. When we survey, we do ask about the financial impact, the personal financial impact the pandemic's had, and the vast majority still say that they have either not have been impacted at all or are only somewhat negatively impacted. Some of the items I quoted, the fact that two-thirds are saying they have summer travel plans, or they plan to make summer travel, and about half are saying spring break are all consistent with it. One other quick anecdotal data point.
While obviously the city we live in, Las Vegas, continues to get it hard, our casino operators have commented that retail, high-end dining, and other high-end experiences have actually been well up over prior years, suggesting maybe the tip of the iceberg on some of this forced savings, as well as some of the psychology behind going on a year of realizing how valuable it is to have the ability to travel and spend freely.
Okay. That's helpful. Maybe a follow-up for Scott Sheldon and Greg. I think pre-COVID, the thinking was kind of induct 10 airplanes a year at most. I'm wondering if, given the opportunities you're seeing and some of the favorable pricing, if you could accelerate that or if you're going to stick to the 10 cap. Greg, were you saying that to get to a five handle on CASM-ex, you would need to fly 120% of 2019 capacity? Is that what you meant? Thank you.
Yeah. I'll kick it off there, I'll start with the last question there first, Joe. Yeah, that's if you were to take and kind of max up the fleet on a normal utilization profile. Yeah, that'd probably be about 120% of 2019 capacity would get you down into the low 6s or potentially a five handle. In terms of induction aircraft, we're certainly capable of inducting more than 10 aircraft per year. That's been a good rule of thumb for growth for us, 10%-15%, I think, just generally. What I'd say is, we'll be opportunistic in the markets like this, where there's the opportunity potentially to buy and/or acquire aircraft at good prices. Drew and team have the ability to deploy those aircraft, and we could flex that up.
We feel good about that, and we have the infrastructure to support it.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore. Your line is open.
Hey, close enough. Thanks for the time. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Can you just repeat what you said about the first quarter CASM and then just generally, to get CASM down in the fourth quarter on this level of capacity, and appreciate you are a lower utilization airline to begin with, how do you do that? What are the reasons that Allegiant can get down CASM relative to 2019 on capacity that's down?
Sure. Duane, this is Greg. I'll take that. Maybe I'll start on the first quarter CASM-ex. The reason that's going to be toppier, the highest quarter we think in the year is, really given that with the PSP2 and bringing back the labor that we're going to need to bring back not only the pilots, but we continue to pay the management folks that moved on. That's going to put a burden there. It's going to put a headwind there, I should say. On top of that, you may recall, you may not, I can't remember if I've mentioned this in our earnings call, but typically in the first quarter, we recognize an expense for all our PTO for our crew members based on the rules in their CBA agreements, and that's roughly $10 million in and of itself.
It puts some pressure on the first quarter there for that. Then I think as you're just starting to mobilize and get ready to fly, as you're running aircraft through induction and just getting things going, there's some headwinds, I guess, reinvestments, if you will, back into the business. That'll start taking place in the first quarter, along with training and things like that. On your fourth quarter comment, it's a good question, Duane, and I think the way I've been thinking about it's almost just like this intersection or this point in time. In the fourth quarter, we didn't have the incremental labor. We had that out because the CARES Act had fallen off there. We ran just all discretionary expenses were out.
What I would say is that's just unique, and as we think about the future and we think about positioning ourself for growth, both short term and long term, you have to have a scalable type of infrastructure in there to support that growth. So you have to spend a buck to make a couple of bucks. So that fourth quarter, again, that was an anomaly, and we went back, and we pulled out all discretionary expenses, but I wouldn't use that as like a run rate going forward, if that makes sense.
Does make sense. Then just for my follow-up, maybe for Scott and Maurice both, as you look at your portfolio of big focus destinations, who do you think is doing the best job of giving people a reason to travel, right? We're here in the New York area. Once upon a time, that was a big leisure destination. You can have various opinions, but I'd argue maybe New York's not the best advocate for giving people a reason to travel here. Whether it's Vegas or just mother nature, as you highlighted, what are the destinations that are doing the best job of giving folks a reason to travel again?
I'll give a high level. Scott may have more detail, but you got to point to Florida. With the international travel now that's been forced to have a test coming back where your Latin American, your Caribbean, our testing is difficult, if not impossible to get down there. You've got people wanting to get away. The traditional spring break is coming up. Florida's the place to go. California is usually historically a good place, but they've had a lot of "don't come here" types of messages going out, albeit they're getting better. Las Vegas is still shut down, for lack of a better description. An interesting stat I heard, the Highway 15 is back to its full numbers compared to a year ago, so coming up from L.A. People want to move.
We did a little analysis where we took the bell curve of the population age, you get from 18 to 50 is, what, 65% of the people in this country. You'd know stuff about COVID now. You know friends that have had it, may have known, unfortunately, someone who has passed away from it. You don't worry that much, is the sense I'm getting, if you're a 30-year-old, that you're going to get it.
You get it, you have the cold, you move on. They just don't want to be locked down. It's human nature. We're social animals. We want to move. I was with some people from a premier car manufacturer here recently. They had a, oh my god, fourth quarter, and I asked them why. He says, "As simple as it is, people have all this extra money that they're not spending on travel, going out to eat, all the stuff you use to consume money on, it's burning a hole in your pocket." They bought a lot of cars. These things are going to revert back to the norm, which is leisure traffic and leisure travel, and that's why I think we're so well-positioned.
Business traffic, I'm not in that business, but I wouldn't want to be on a business end trying to make that model come back quickly. Scott?
I would say, just simply add to that, I think Las Vegas is doing a good job of laying the foundation from a health and safety perspective because the eye is more on getting the big conventions back, like the CESs, et cetera. I would double down on what Maurice said. Florida, and specifically in these Visit Florida, Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, Sarasota, have been very actively and structurally partnering with airlines like us to go out and co-market together. The part I mentioned about that was specifically related to those partners and others like them, that beyond the health and safety and all the things required to operate, are making an aggressive push to once again attract vacationers to their destinations.
Appreciate the thoughts.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Savanthi Syth with Raymond James.
Thank you. Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Greg, if I might, I know you're not looking at cash burn, but I know you've kind of talked to operating cash flow and you've given a lot of kind of items for us to think about, but just wondering if you could provide a little bit more color on just how much of ticket sales are cash versus vouchers. The ATL seems pretty high on a voucher basis, and then what level of booking you need to see to get that EBITDA breakeven or better?
Sure, Savi. Let me kick it off, and Drew may want to add some stuff on the voucher redemptions and ATL. Yeah, what I'd say on ATL first is, you probably didn't see or you probably noticed that we didn't reduce as a percent of our outstanding ATL, the number of credit vouchers. I think in the third quarter it was $220 million, and I think in the fourth quarter it was consistent. When you kind of peel that back a little bit and take a look, what really has happened in the fourth quarter is that what we've seen is that there's still some issuances that are largely offsetting the redemption of the credit vouchers. As we look into the first quarter, that trend, meaning the redemption of the credit vouchers, is nicely outpacing the issuances, or I should say in January.
We're burning that out, and I think just in 2021, we'll continue to chew through that. The one other thing I may add, and then I see if Drew wants to add some commentary just to your kind of what we need to be EBITDA positive. I talked about the $3.5 million of what we're currently seeing, and I want to highlight that that's not inclusive of any vouchers, so that's just true cash in the door. That's what we're seeing there. I think where we're at today, given some of the roll-offs of the taxes such as the FET taxes, the segment taxes, and things from the CARES Act that are now back in play in 2021. You've seen a spike in fuel, which is putting a little more headwind on your cash.
I think you're probably closer to between three and a half in daily bookings to get to that kind of EBITDA breakeven, give or take a little bit.
I think you captured it.
All right. Great. If I might just quickly ask for a clarification on the fleet. The fleet plan that was kind of provided in the release and that you talked about, does that include any aircraft in storage, or is that just the plan kind of excludes anything kind of that's put in short-term storage?
I'll take it. What it does, Savi, is I think we talked about six aircraft in storage last quarter. Three of those have already kind of run through the pipeline and are back in service now as of the end of the year of 2020. For that growth, I think what we're incremental 13 aircraft, three of those incremental aircraft in 2021 are the three additional storage aircraft coming back.
Okay. Perfect. All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Hunter Keay with Wolfe Research.
Thanks. Hi, everybody. Hey, Maurice, you had this vision of a travel sort of like ecosystem for Allegiant when you thought about Sunseeker. I'm kind of curious if the COVID crisis and the 1,000 markets that you mentioned, does that open up enough growth for you organically to the point where you're comfortable just focusing on the airline, or is there still this draw to diversify the business because you just think it's sort of a good idea for your company anyway?
Well, it's hard to change the spots on a leopard, Hunter. Long term, it's proven to be just such a huge number for us. We've done $1.7 billion of third-party revenue since 2002, of which we've made close to $550 million of operating income, pushing $600. You can't say that that hasn't been a difference maker for us. We do things like we have no middleman between us and our customer. You have no Expedia charges. You have no branding charges, any of those types of things. Having said that, we're focused on the airline, and we're not going to shortchange the airline whatsoever. We want to pick up and move as much as we can towards rental cars and hotels, and we're doing a lot in the new website that we just opened. That's where we're using our strength.
Part of this whole reason for this travel company is we have a tool that no one else in this industry has. We own our own res platform. We were the leaders in the 2000s in developing seating assignments and all the ancillary revenues. You can do that when you control the tool. All these attributes, when you add them up, point towards a customer-oriented, get as much wallet share as you can out of that customer. There's a reason we lead the industry in operating margin, and we've done it year in and year out. It's because we have extra revenue. We have more revenue than the average carrier who's fighting over that same person with those seats and who can commoditize it to a lower price or whatever. It's a business that we don't have a lot of separation.
We have some certainly, and we focus on a different customer than most at the leisure level. You need differentiation, and that we're different has been a constant use in our situation. That's a long-winded answer that basically says we're really focused on the airline now. We're going to grow this year, I think we said 19%, something like that. There's opportunity, and we're going to definitely take advantage of that. As far as Sunseeker goes, that's still on the back burner. It's something that is, I think, a good long-term strategy for us, but near term, let's keep our head down and take care of business here.
Hunter, the one thing I may add, we're not trying to guide the full year to 19% growth, simply that we have the ability to get there in the back half of the year such that demand calls for that. Let's not run away with that.
Yeah.
All right, Drew. I got you.
Don't let your guard be loose.
You said it, too late. John, a follow-up for John. That land across the street from Sunseeker, how does the prospect of that getting developed impact how you're thinking about the valuation or the attractiveness of finding an equity partner in Sunseeker or selling the land to a third party? Is that factoring in at all to the conversations that you're having?
No, not at all. All the people we're having conversations with, I would imagine most of them aren't even aware what may happen on the other side of the street, to be honest with you. It's rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things. No one's ever raised it or brought it up in my conversation.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brandon Oglenski with Barclays. Your line is open.
Hey, good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. I guess I do want to come back to the 20% comment, and I realize you guys aren't guiding to full year growth of that level. I guess can you give us some of the decision factors that would actually drive you to add that level of capacity in the network? Are we talking about EBITDA margins that are matching prior levels or cash flow levels? Give us some insight into how those capacity additions would come on, if they do.
Sure. This is Drew here. I'm not necessarily setting EBITDA thresholds at this point, but I'd like to get back to a point where certainly we're moving past just cash profitability on flights and thinking more expanded into the growth margin perspective. I'm not baking in thoughts that future PSP is going to come online, and crew costs are certainly a consideration as we move forward. While I'll stop short of giving you specific thresholds, it's more of a, hopefully, normalized perspective in terms of what is making money and what is best for the company, and not just simply relying on cash profitability of that flight, because that's not something we can sustain for a long period.
Brandon, this is Greg. I might just add one quick data point, too. Just the infrastructure for the 2021 growth was pretty much in place, right? Maybe not to the extent of the 19% growth in the back half. If you think about it, we have all the pilots and the crews to support it, and then for the most part, we had the aircraft as well. The large kind of infrastructure to support 2021 was in place.
Yeah, Brandon-
Yeah.
The results will drive what we do. It's as simple as that.
Okay. I guess the question was just more around, is this where we should expect the network's going to grow once you guys attain a certain level of profitability? We don't lose that returns focus long term. Is that right?
Correct. Yeah. I don't think anyone here is trying to suggest that we're a long-term 20% company at this point. I think we see specific opportunity. To Greg's point, we have infrastructure in place to be able to do this such that demand is there. No, by no means are we trying to reduce the margin profile of this company simply for the sake of growth. That's not at all the case.
That's why, Brandon, we threw out as well that the EBITDA per aircraft is $6 million, that we want to get back there to show the balance, that that's our true north, so to speak. I don't think we'll be there in 2021, but that's what we're looking at long term, is to get back to that. There's some positive catalyst to support that we think. That's what Maurice said. He said, "Hey, that's our target. That's where we need to be economically." So we're keeping that in mind as well.
Yeah, let me just clarify. Brandon, we're not going to grow just purely market share type of thing. One of the values I've very much treasured is we keep our margins up. Just to end up bigger and cut our margins down by 30% or 40%, it's kind of like, why are you doing that? There's plenty of real estate out there for us to look at longer term. This year, to Greg's point, we have infrastructure and the ability to do it quicker, particularly in the first half of the year, and we'll see where we go. All the numbers are pointing up, suggest we can go and do some things.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks, Brandon.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Linenberg with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Oh, yeah. Hey. Good afternoon, everyone. Just two here. One quick one, Greg. Just to guide to positive EPS in the March quarter, what's the underlying fuel price range that you're using?
Right now we're paying just about $1.65 per gallon. It may be worth just clarifying too, that's a GAAP number, so I think that would include the benefit from the PSP, which for us, Mike, is $92 million that all recognized in the first quarter as an offset to labor.
Okay, great. Second question, it's probably to Drew and maybe even Maurice, because he sort of mentioned it, talking about the model and really flying during peak periods or peak days and not flying Tuesdays, Wednesdays, et cetera. When we look out at the March schedule, which I think you just loaded, there are city pairs where, in fact, several or maybe even a decent number of city pairs where you're operating what looks like maybe two, and even in some cases, three daily flights. I realize that that could be that you have Sundays or Fridays where you're flying three or four. The fact is, it's a type of frequency that we haven't seen in the past. Knowing that March, and especially to places like Florida, can be a strong time for Allegiant, I'm curious, is this striking when the iron's hot?
Are you sort of deviating away, maybe I shouldn't say deviating away, but sort of expanding upon your peak strategy that you've used in the past? I did think it was quite interesting to see the type of frequency adds in some of these markets. Thanks.
Yeah, Drew here. You can certainly look historically and find those markets where we have operated more than two times daily. I think one of the things I'm pretty keen on, and my team can vouch for this, is ensuring that we're right-sizing frequencies on the markets that can take it. You will see that specifically in the peak periods where there is a more resilient demand profile, and we're looking to capitalize on that. Part of the wide net strategy is putting that out there, and it's a lot easier to be able to re-accom a customer in the event you have to cancel to another flight on the same day than it is to try to move them days.
I think we have a little bit more flexibility as it pertains to that as well, to where the wider net can be even more successful during these peak periods looking forward. I have every intention of operating all of those on some of our thicker markets in the best of periods. We'll remain flexible in the event we need to pull down a little bit in demand and manifest quite in the way we expect it to.
Very good. Thanks, Drew.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Darryl Genovesi with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is open.
Hey, everybody. Thanks for the time. Hey, Maurice, back on your third quarter conference call in October, you talked a lot about how important it is for customers to fly direct in this environment, how much more that's the case than it was pre-pandemic. Can you or Scott DeAngelo, based on your survey work, help us understand just how much of an opportunity that is for you? I guess in particular, if I might just offer this question as a guide, do you think that the desire to go direct can meaningfully influence the passengers O&D, specifically the markets that you serve direct versus those that you don't?
I'll give it a start. Thanks for the question. The answer is, we continue to push nonstop both as health and safety benefits and not going through crowded hubs. The reality is, it has been high. It remains a key distinction point, and I'll tell you, as you may have seen in charts I showed during Investor Day, it's the reason we share a lot of customers with Delta and Cincinnati, because while they might fly one for business on their own money, they'll be happy to fly into Sanford to take the family to Universal Orlando or Walt Disney World. The same thing happens in Mesa rather than where they might fly business to Sky Harbor. We continue to see that, and it continues to be a distinctive point.
I can't speak how much of that is the health benefit they perceive versus just the convenience, but there's no doubt that it remains a high reason that we share customers with a lot of other airlines that you wouldn't think would mix, just because on their leisure dollar and on their leisure time, they want to get there nonstop.
Okay. Thanks for that. Then, I guess my sense, Greg, is that the fourth quarter CASM-ex number came in a little bit better than you might have expected. Just listening to you talk about 2021, the outlook sounds perhaps a little bit more optimistic than what we heard from you in Q3. Your $75 million number is the same. I guess, is there something about the more discretionary pieces of your cost profile that are perhaps coming in a little bit better both in the fourth quarter and into 2021?
Hey, Darryl. No, thanks for the question. Yeah, I think it's fair. I was pleasantly surprised with where we came in on the fourth quarter of this year. There were some items there, some benefits that we saw maybe one time in nature too. We had some insurance proceeds that came in for an event, and that was helpful as well. As we think about it, in the $75 million in structural cost savings, I think what's that worth? About $0.005 in CASM-ex on a full year or thereabout. That's obviously helpful, but I think what's giving us more conviction to come out and talk about that is just we have more line of sight on what potential capacity could be, and that's kind of the other driver in us getting down into the low six handle kind of range.
I think that's giving us a little more confidence or conviction behind it. I'd just leave it at that, I guess.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot, guys.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, I will now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
Thank you all very much. Appreciate your interest, and we'll talk to you after another 90 days. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.