Allegiant is offering fares from Wichita to the destination as low as $59.99 one way (not including taxes.)

Including the Wichita service, Allegiant now serves 20 cities from the Phoenix-Mesa airport. That’s given the Arizona airport quite a boon.

In 2007, the airport served just 37,000 passengers, said Milt Fort, director of marketing for the Mesa Convention and Visitors Bureau. This year, that number will be in excess of 700,000.

“That’s a huge economic impact for us,” Fort said.

No kidding!

Fort is in Wichita for Allegiant’s inaugural flight today. On Thursday, he was meeting with Wichita airport and convention and visitor bureau officials to discuss how to promote the two cities.

The Mesa-Phoenix area is a popular place for “snowbirds” looking to get out of the winter cold, he said. People also come for the outdoor activities.

But residents in his area also want to visit the Midwest, he said. That’s according to a survey of airport passengers there.

Fort has been on the road a lot lately himself. In the past nine weeks, he’s traveled to 18 of the 20 cities Allegiant serves from his hometown. He plans to visit the last two cities the week after Thanksgiving.

Allegiant also operates nonstop flights from Wichita to Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

A router problem, which occurred early this morning, lasted for four hours. The failure was attributed to a software configuration problem within the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure, or FTI, in Salt Lake City, the agency said. The National Airspace Data Interchange Network, which processes flight planning, was affected because it relies on the FTI services.

A team of technical and safety experts is investigating the outage.

I received an e-mail today from someone in the aviation industry who is critical of President Obama who, on his trip to China this week, pledged support of China’s regional jet, which is in the works.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama said that he would push for closer technical collaboration and eventual U.S. safety approval for China’s ARJ21 commuter jet.

“This is just great,” said a reader in his e-mail to me today. “Something is badly and horrible wrong with these actions – destroy your own great USA aviation industry and build the foreign competitions industry – SAD.”

What do you think? Send me your comments.

At the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, there are some minor delays from the outage, said airport spokeswoman Valerie Wise. The AirTran Airways flight scheduled to arrive at 12:24 p.m. and depart for Atlanta at 12:54 has been canceled. It’s the only flight to be canceled in Wichita because of the glitch, Wise said.

Still, Wise said, passengers should call the airlines for updated flight information. The flight schedule may be OK here, but it may affect a connecting flight in another city.

“What you’re going to see now, the airlines unfortunately are going to have to try to get everything back in sync,” said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Cory. “They have to try to get back to their schedules, and at the same time, they’re going to have to try to reposition the planes.”

In addition, some flight crews may be “timing out,” Cory said.

The problem began when one of two FAA centers that handles flight plan information had a problem with the system that files those plans. The other center picked up as much of the information as possible, but some of the overflow had to be entered manually, Cory said.

Flight plans are filed before a flight departs. They include information about the flight, such as the planned destination, route and fuel on board.

Flights in the air were safe, the FAA said. “We could always see planes on radar and talk to them,” Cory said.

“I am perfectly willing, if that’s the direction that comes to me, to engage the Chinese in trying to make them a partner in any space endeavour. I think they’re a very capable nation,” NASA chief Charles Bolden said.

China has been spending billions on its space program to try to close the gap with Western nations.

Panel members include Jack Pelton of Cessna Aircraft, David Coleal with Bombardier Learjet, Bill Boisture with Hawker Beechcraft, Bill Greer with Airbus North America Engineering, Jeff Turner with Spirit AeroSystems and Scott Strode with Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in Wichita. The event will be moderated by Mac McClellan, editor-in-chief of Flying magazine.

The Wichita Aero Club is offering sponsorships for the event for $2,000 to cover expenses and pursue future opportunities, it said. Logos of the sponsoring companies will be displayed online and throughout the event, organizers said.

The luncheon will be held at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 15 at the Wichita Airport Hilton. The on-air summit will begin at 12:15 p.m.

For more information, contact Dave Franson at dfranson@wichitaaeroclub.org or call 316-681-4491. For lunch reservations, call 316-641-5962 or go to www.wichitaaeroclub.org.

Both planes are supposed to take their maiden flights by the end of the year. Both programs have been hit by numerous delays. Some commentors are speculating that the flights may be pushed into next year, the bookmaker, Paddy Power, notes.

Paddy Power bills itself as Ireland’s largest bookmaker and a leading provider of gaming services. It’s offering odds of 1-to-2 that Boeing’s Dreamliner will take to the skies first.

It’s offering 6-to-4 odds that the Airbus A400M will fly first.

“This has the makings of a very interesting race with obviously billions on the line for both airlines,” Paddy Power said in a statement. “Our betting suggests that Boeing is the early leader, but this could obviously change very fast.”

According to the airline’s Finnair Plus website, it takes 1.32 million points for lower lid surgery. The surgery would be performed by Nordstrom Hospital in Helsinki, Finland. A consultation with the hospital is needed first, according to the website.

Earning the 3.18 million points for breast augmentation surgery requires 120 round-trip, business-class flights between Helsinki and New York, according to Bloomberg.

The  Vero Beach, Fla.-based planemaker is seeking engineers for a variety of positions, it says, including airframe design, stress analysis, electrical and avionics design, mechanical systems, pwerplant design, instrumentation, aerodynamics or performance and manufacturing/industrial. Piper is also looking for a tool designer, estimator and director of manufacturing. The company has intermediate, senior and lead positions available.

The job fair will be held 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on November 20 and 21st at the Broadview Hotel at 400 W. Douglas. The company says to e-mail a resume to wichitajobfair@piper.com to be considered for a scheduled interview.