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Allegiant Air travelers bound for Denver on Aug. 3 wound up back in Allentown 11 hours later

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Allegiant Air travelers bound for Denver on Aug. 3 wound up back in Allentown 11 hours later


The Big Sky Country beckoned to travelers who boarded an Allegiant Air flight to Denver from Lehigh Valley International Airport around 1 p.m. on Aug. 3.

These tourists did not get to see the Rocky Mountains or the Denver Art Museum.

“There’s no place like home,” as the expression goes, and that is where the Airbus 320 wound up early the next morning. Right back in Hanover Township (Lehigh County), after a stop in South Dakota.

And for that experience, each got a refund for the flight and a $200 payment, a passenger said. The airline said compensation also included a $200 voucher toward future travel.

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Allegiant Air said issues out of its control – bad weather in Denver and federal rules – led to the long trip home.

“Unfortunately, Allegiant flight 167 on Aug. 3, originating from ABE (Lehigh Valley) to DEN (Denver), had to divert to FSD (South Dakota) because of a weather-related ground stop in DEN. The crew decided to return to ABE before reaching their FAA-mandated maximum hours they are allowed to fly in order to avoid stranding passengers in Sioux Falls,” the statement said.

The FAA is the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates air travel.

The flight between LVIA and Denver started in June, and usually takes a little over four hours. This one turned into a half-day adventure.

“We are very sorry for the inconvenience to passengers and the disruption this caused to their travel plans,” Allegiant said in a statement. “We know it must have been frustrating to have a long day of travel to ultimately not arrive at the destination. We provided passengers a full refund, and as a gesture of goodwill, $200 in vouchers for future travel as well as an extra $200 sent via Paynuver, our online payment distribution platform.”

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The flight started about an hour late, the passenger said. As the plane approached Denver, the travelers were told to take their seats for descent, and then the flight was diverted to South Dakota because of storms.

The passenger, who asked not to be identified, said the pilot said the craft did not have enough fuel to circle Denver and that it would refuel at Sioux Falls Regional Airport in the southeast corner of South Dakota.

Then, the plane sat for hours.

“They wouldn’t offer us food and water,” the passenger said. Some travelers opted to get off at the South Dakota airport, and the passenger said anybody who left was told they could not get back on. They also forfeited their checked luggage, at least temporarily.

Sioux Falls is about 600 miles from Denver, slightly further than the distance from Allentown to Detroit.

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“We were on that plane for a total of 11-and-a-half hours,” the passenger said. Those who stayed on board arrived back at LVIA shortly after midnight Aug. 4.

“I’m very proud of our plane because as frustrated as everybody was, including a woman who missed her son’s wedding, we were being really fair,” the passenger said. “We were just asking questions and yet we were being treated as if it were our fault.”

The passenger who spoke to WFMZ said there was a lack of communication from the staff: “We knew it wasn’t their fault, it was just handled very poorly.”

The passenger said an email sent to Allegiant’s president has not been returned.

“It’s a half day of your life,” the traveler said of the experience, noting that in the long run, the lost time means more than the money lost.

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Allegiant is based in Las Vegas. It flies travelers from Lehigh Valley International Airport to several Sunbelt locations in addition to Denver.

Shares in Allegiant Travel Co. are traded on the NASDAQ market under the ticker symbol ALGT. The closing price Monday was $86.29. At that price, the company has a market capitalization of $1.59 billion.





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Denver, CO

Over 400 flights delayed Tuesday amid high winds at Denver International Airport

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Over 400 flights delayed Tuesday amid high winds at Denver International Airport


More than 400 flights were delayed Tuesday afternoon at Denver International Airport as high winds blew across the area, according to flight tracking data from FlightAware.

There were 406 flights delayed and five canceled as of 5:20 p.m. as wind gusts at the airport hit 43 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., 70 flights were delayed and one was canceled, according to live flight tracking by FlightAware’s Misery Map.

United, Alaska Airlines, Southwest, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Key Lime Air, SkyWest, WestJet, American Airlines and Air Canada all had delayed or canceled flights.

Southwest had nearly half of the delayed flights, with 168 delays and one cancellation. United delayed 128 flights, according to FlightAware.

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Did you know: Almost $1 million in coins pass through the Denver Mint every day

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Did you know: Almost $1 million in coins pass through the Denver Mint every day


DENVER (KDVR) – From the outside, the Denver Mint may be just another two-story government office across from Civic Center Park. But inside the Cherokee Street building, staff and machinery are busy pressing metal coils into millions of coins per day.

According to the Mint, it’s one of two facilities responsible for making circulating coins in the United States – making it a huge part of the nation’s coin flow.

According to Tom Fesing with the Denver Mint, the facility produces roughly 4.5 million coins every 24 hours. Fesing estimates that about $750,000 to $1 million has gone through the facility each day this year.

That said, the Mint can’t exactly predict how much is going to be produced throughout the year as the number of coins depends on the orders the Mint receives monthly from the central bank, the Federal Reserve System, Fesing said.

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Despite the millions of dollars in coins passing through, Fesing said the coin with the lowest value, the penny, has historically had the most production.

Those numbers depend on how many coins are needed for cash transactions in the economy, according to Fesing.

“When someone gets back a cent in change, what happens to them? They usually end up in piggy banks, or in a jar, and they’re not introduced into circulation as fast as, let’s say, a quarter or a dime,” Fesing said.

While the Mint can’t predict the numbers for the end of this year, it has produced almost 1.3 billion coins this year, with almost 800 million being pennies. In 2023, the Mint produced around 5.65 billion coins for the entire year.

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US ambassador visits conflict-ridden Mexican state to expedite avocado inspections

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US ambassador visits conflict-ridden Mexican state to expedite avocado inspections


MORELIA, Mexico (AP) — United States Ambassador Ken Salazar praised Mexico’s effort protect American agricultural inspectors in the conflict-ridden state of Michoacan on Monday, a week after the U.S. suspended avocado and mango inspections following an attack on inspectors.

Salazar traveled to the state, plagued by violence linked to organized crime, to meet with state and federal officials.

Earlier this month, two employees of the U.S. Agriculture Department were assaulted and temporarily held by assailants in Mexico’s biggest avocado-producing state, prompting the U.S. government to suspend inspections.

The diplomat told the press that last Friday that Michoacan authorities had agreed to a security plan to restart avocado exports. “We are going to continue working on this,” he added.

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The U.S. said that inspections in Michoacan would resume gradually.

Mexico played down the attacks, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to work with the United States to guarantee the safety of inspectors.

Many avocado growers in Michoacan say drug gangs threaten them or their family members with kidnapping or death unless they pay protection money, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars per acre.

There have also been reports of criminal groups trying to sneak avocados grown in other states that are not approved for export through U.S. inspections.

In February 2022, the U.S. government suspended inspections of Mexican avocados for about a week after a U.S. plant safety inspector in Michoacan received a threatening message.

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Later that year, Jalisco became the second Mexican state authorized to export avocados to the U.S.

The latest pause won’t stop Michoacan avocados that are already in transit from reaching the U.S.



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