A Vent: Why, oh, Why - bad AirTran, bad!

[keishashadow]

I've been flying AirTran for quite some time...basically because of cheap fares, flight times from PIT to MCO & easy reward credits.

Over several trips during the last 3 years I have only ONCE received notice that they changed my flight times....usually when I'm booking a new flight & just checking to see if there's a cheaper fare for my confirmed dates.

Their lame excuse is that maybe my spam filter is blocking the changes. Funny, I always manage to get their escape/sale/junk e-mail - just not the important info.

Of course, I could rebook @ no penalty due to my inconvenience...if only anything else was left on reward travel to book.grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[Alexander]

Get used to it, Airtran is not the only one making changes and not telling their customers..... American changed our flight by more than 5 hours (earlier departure coming home) for President's Week and Delta has made 12 changes to our April itinerary and neither one has yet to contact me. Took care of the American changes, but I'm not even touching Delta yet because I'm sure they aren't done making changes yet.

 

[safetymom]

Once you purchase a ticket it is your responsibility to keep an eye on the flight. Don't depend on the airline notifying you. When you notice a change call the airline. All the airlines do it so you need to stay on top of things.

 

[Donna]

Well, with the airfares so cheap to MCO via southwest...tell Air Tran you're done flying with them! Who can beat $36 one way to orlando? btw, i live right up the river from you in new kensington!

 

[keishashadow]

My DH is a New Ken (well, Parnassus - excuse me LOL) boy.

Unfortunately, I've garnered lots of reward vouchers via lost luggage issues & CC rewards & would like to use them...although I have downloaded DING & am eagerly watching my dates.

I still think, low prices aside, if they change the flight times they should be able to automatically generate an e-mail to customers already booked on the flight. I'm no techie but, you'd think it possible.

Call me old-fashioned but when did low-fares = crappy customer service?

Well, with the airfares so cheap to MCO via southwest...tell Air Tran you're done flying with them! Who can beat $36 one way to orlando? btw, i live right up the river from you in new kensington!

 

[safetymom]

The public wanted low fares and customer service costs money. They outsourced it to foreign lands since it was cheaper and then use less people. IT people cost money so they likely don't employ a lot of them to send emails to customers.

 

[keishashadow]

Yes, I do realize you sacrifice a degree of customer service when you book a budget carrier.

It just frosts me that Air Tran insists that ALL customers on altered flights get an e-mail notice when this occurs.

Point taken, I will make sure I check my flight times weekly in the future. Perhaps if I, and everyone else concerned about missing a flight, clog up their server checking existing flight times instead of booking new travel they'll make more of an effort to service existing customers instead of rolling out new promos (ala Wendy's cups). Although I jumped on that bandwagon, I'm starting to get a sinking feeling about the odds of actually being able to redeem the vouchers.

 

[jiminy14]

AirTran is not the only airline not notifying its customers of changes. USAIR has done this to us numerous times in the past. The only time they did notify us was when our original flight was taken off of the schedule due to cut backs. They randomly assigned us to another flight without calling and verifying that the new flight would work for us. They did, however, notify us that they had put us on the new flight. The new flight was not as convenient timewise but we had no other option as the remaining flights on that day were booked due to all of USAIR's "re-scheduling".

 

[Coll0610]

Airtran has changed our times the last 2 years and called us both times. We have never gotten an email (although they insist that one should have been sent and we get all the Net Escapes emails they send with no problem).

 

[deide71]

Airtran canceled our nonstop flight in Oct. and rebooked us on one with a 5 hr layover. We were not contacted, I found it via my obsessive rechecking of vacation plans.

They did allow us to cancel our flight, and I found a cheaper one, thank goodness.

 

[dck12ga]

rumor has it Airtran changes their flights on Sundays! So I have been checking a couple of times during the week and at least once on Sundays. They did contact me about a change in our flights (I already knew!) but it was only by a few minutes. I have one more Sunday to go before we go!!!
sorry, I can't help dancing!!! So lets hope that they do not change the flights this close to Mickey!!!!!!

 

[bicker]

Call me old-fashioned but when did low-fares = crappy customer service?

Since the dawn of humanity.

 

[goofy4tink]

In all my trips with Delta/Song, I have been contacted by them once!!! And that was to ask if I would be willing to change my flight due to overbooking!! However, not once have I been told of a flight change. And there have been many changes to almost every single flight with Song. That's the price I pay for lower fares. Now, here I sit, while waiting for JetBlue to open it's Dec window so I can book. But, at least I know that flying with JB means that I don't have to check my flight several times a day and then make a call to get my seats back again, or to rebook because the changes they made are unacceptable to me!!!

 

[bicker]

I received several emails from Delta or Travelocity about scheduled changes for flights over the past year.

 

[Nebsky]

Call me old-fashioned but when did low-fares = crappy customer service?

Recent studies show that #1 thing most passengers care about is low fares. They want to get from point a to point b as cheap as possible. When low fares happen, airlines look to cut costs. Safety and security are top priority which means customer service stuff gets neglected. Add to that airlines losing BILLIONS of dollars which also means cuts in pay to most employees. They end up hurting the front lines customer contact employees the most. They in turn care less about thier jobs and it shows.

 

[Bronte]

I am sorry but I am
Do you just happen to notice that the time for departure or return has changed for the flight numbers you are on ... we will fly northwest this may, I booked way back in late August and all the times listed on their web page for those flights have never changed ... those are their standard flights (one in the morning and one in the evening, direct IND to MCO.)
If the flight times changed at all then that would show up on their resevations web page ... so all I have to do is check that right ????

 

[bicker]

Yes. And understand that all airlines change flight schedules four or five times a year. Some airlines (like Southwest and JetBlue) don't allow you book until after they've announced the final schedule, but the ones that do allow you book earlier, even 11 months prior, will almost surely change some of their flights two or three or four times.