Allegiant Air’s new pilot contract is easy to describe as a big raise, but that undersells what happened on August 3rd. The pilots of Allegiant Air ratified TA26 with 79.51% of the vote, with 970 pilots voting yes and 250 voting no, and the agreement immediately lifted average hourly wages by roughly 40% while unlocking about $300 million in retention bonuses. The more important story is that a low-cost carrier has effectively acknowledged that pilot pay at the bottom of the seniority list is no longer simply another variable in the ultra-low-cost-carrier model.