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.

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.

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 app is based on Virgin Atlantic’s course designed to help people to overcome their fear of flying. It gives its  success rate as 98 percent.

Fears can range from anxiety at takeoff to a complete inability to board an aircraft, the airline said.

Features include an video introduction by Virgin Atlantic’s Sir Richard Branson, explains flight from start to finish, answers common questions and gives relaxation and fear therapy. It also has a “fear attack button” that gives breathing exercises and quick tips.

The app was developed in partnership between the airline and Mental Workout, a company that designs, develops, and markets mobile applications to help people resolve issues and increase mental performance.

The cigarettes will deliver a small amount of nicotine through inhalation and will be available to passengers over the age of 18, it said.

Smoking on commercial flights has been illegal since the 1990s.  The cigarettes contain no toxins or chemicals and are harmless to the user and those around them, the airline said.

The airline introduced the product after a survey found that more than 24,000 Ryanair passengers said they’d like to smoke during flights.

Now, “non-smokers will no longer have to cope with moody smokers in need of nicotine,” Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said in a statement.

It was great not changing planes along the way. But here’s a tip. If you’re going to check a bag, be sure to call and pay the $30 round-trip charge for it at least four hours before your flight departs. If you wait until you get to the counter — or call with fewer than four hours before departure — the fee spikes to $50.

Trust me on this one.

AirTran will fly to Key West nonstop from Orlando using 737-700 jets. The flights will run on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

With AirTran serving Wichita with service to Atlanta, getting to Key West would take two stops along the way.

If approved, service would begin later this year.

AirTran serves Wichita with three daily flights to Atlanta, where flights to the three vacation spots would originate, the airline said.

The carrier filed applications with the U.S. Department of Transportation for the service.