Wednesday flights from Bismarck to Las Vegas via Allegiant Air were scheduled to begin this week but have been postponed until Oct. 20 because of low passenger numbers.

Allegiant Air began flying to and from Las Vegas and Bismarck in May. The Bismarck Airport waived the company's first-year landing fees and provided $25,000 for a marketing campaign as an incentive for the company to locate here.

Ponder Harrison, managing director of Allegiant, said Bismarck is one of the airline's best cities in the system and produces good results. However, when the airline took a look at where flights were the weakest, it was for the time period of when Wednesday flights were supposed to begin.

When the airline first announced it would fly from Bismarck, it planned to offer three flights. However, it began with two. The Monday and Friday flights have been in place since May and have been heavily booked, Harrison said. As a result, the airline decided in July to add a third.

Harrison didn't know the number of passengers scheduled to be on the canceled flights. Keeping the third flight will depend on how many passengers book their flights for Wednesdays, he said.

Patty Mosbrucker, a travel consultant with Satrom Travel, said her company had clients booked on the flight that was canceled Sept. 29. Rebooking them, she said, was somewhat difficult because some clients travel Allegiant to Las Vegas to connect with other flights. Booking within a few days can result in drastically higher prices, with one person paying an additional $500 for a ticket.

But for the most part, Mosbrucker said, her company was surprised that a Wednesday flight was added by the airline.

"We … booked a lot of Allegiant (flights) but just didn't think they needed an extra day in there. We just didn't think it would be economical for Allegiant to add another day," she said.

One of the possible drawbacks to the Wednesday flights, Harrison said, is that Monday and Friday flights are so booked there might not be room for Wednesday fliers to return on either of those days.

"Bismarck is a great two-flight market and we don't know how it will react to three flights," Harrison said. "We're interested in growing the market so we're putting in a third to see how it works."