Air Tran Airways... any good?

[Papa Deuce]

Looking for our December WDW trip. They are $30pp cheaper than the next lowest flight. The good, bad, ugly?

 

[Breezy_Carol]

DH and I have both flown AirTran. I think they are nicer than SouthWest. At least you can chose your seat ahead of time.

 

[ClarabelleCowFan]

Great airline and for just a few $$$ extra you can upgrade to First Class!

 

[crz4mm2]

I have flown Air Tran dozens of times. I have had mostly good luck. Have had a couple of bad experiences though. Air tran is a discount airline. I had a problem coming home from florida once (plane had problems, flight was cancelled- delay in a day coming home) and had a problem coming home from chicago once. But, in all the other times I have flown, I have had good luck.
If you save that much money, give it a whirl.

 

[crz4mm2]

Great airline and for just a few $$$ extra you can upgrade to First Class!

Oh yes! I forgot about that!! DD and I did this on our last trip home from WDW. For 50 bucks each we had "business" class on the way home. Sure was nice.

 

[chell]

I didn't have any problems with them. To bump up to Business Class is $35 to $75. I decided to bump last time because I wasn't feeling too well.

 

[Nala56]

All brand spanking new planes. We've flown many times and have never had a problem. Last year we flew from Pitt to Orlando $98.00 round trip.

 

[Aurora63]

I flew with them twice, no real complaints...but if you are used to bigger jets, you'll be in for a shock when you get on board...they used 717's, which are small jets...I felt extremely claustrophobic when I first got on, but got used to it after awhile.

 

[wdwmom2]

I flew them once and enjoyed the flight. No problems to speak of and would use them again. I have heard that they often change your flight times, which did happen to us. Not a big difference, can't remember exactly, maybe by a couple of hours.

 

[HootieandtheJoeFish]

Used them 3 weeks ago for a cross country flight RIC>ATL>LAS.

No problems at all, bumped myself up to business class b/c I hate small airplane seats. I slept most of the time so it was probably a waste.

I'll be using them again for a direct flight from Richmond to MCO, $69 each way. Can't be beat.

 

[Chicago526]

I did have an issue with them once about 5 years ago, but since then none of my clients have reported any problems (I'm a travel agent).

The problem was that a client was using them to get to Miami and then was taking another airline from there to San Juan. Airtran delayed the flight to Miami by 3 hours due to mechanical, so my clients were going to miss the connecting American flight. Since they have no interline agreements with other airlines, Aitran could not and would not put them on another airline to get them to Miami, and for the clients to buy a ticket to get them there in time was over $700 per person. They had to cancel their trip all together (it was a quick weekend trip, a surprise for the client's husband's birthday). It then took me six months to get a refund from Airtran on the tickets they never used due to several customer service snafu's.

But like I said, this was 5 years ago. They still don't have interline agreements with other airlines, but I think their customer service has improved and I've had no other clients with problems due to signifigant delays.

 

[Blondie]

Delta is my airline of choice but we've flown with Air Tran 3 times. Two of those flights were great, but one had snippy flight attendants and on that flight it took over an hour once we landed at BWI to get everyone's luggage unloaded and available for retrieval. Maybe they were having a rough day. I thought they were having a work slow down or something Still one out of three isn't too bad.

We'll be flying with Air Tran again at the end of the year.

 

[Bunchkin]

We're using them for the 1st time too in Sept!

So they fly 717's???? What is the seating configuration for that??
And what is it for business class, if we decided to upgrade??

TIA!!!

 

[RachelEllen]

The lack of interairline agreements is the biggest difference between Airtran and legacy carriers.

Most people will have fine experiences. However, when things go wrong, Airtran will have fewer options to help you than other airlines.

What the travel agent here posted is the most likely scenerio where this would affect you. If your plane is late, they will have fewer ways of assisting you than other airlines. They will not make it easy to get a refund in this situation either.

For example, I was flying Airtran from Boston to Atlanta last winter on Friday of a long weekend. Our flight was delayed 3 hours due to weather. They announced that anyone connecting in Atlanta would miss their flight. They would not provide any hotel or meal vouchers. And they could not schedule anyone on another flight until 2 days later. (Many people were connecting to FLorida or Texas to go on cruises) They also announced that no refunds would be issued, only credits. I have no way of knowing if people got a refund if they tried hard enough.

I won't fly them (that one flight was an aberation as someone else was buying the tickets), but it's just that I've been unlucky and had several bad experience. I don't think they are less safe than other airlines. And you may want to take the small risk for a cheaper price.

(And also, btw, Business isn't much to speak of. It's a slightly larger seat. That's about it. But that's hardly unique amongst airlines nowadays. It's just not really worth it, to me, for even just $50 more)

 

[Ub_Iwerks]

Check the prices carefully. Last year, I found an Air Tran flight that was cheaper than the Southwest flight, but when all the taxes and fees were added in, it ended up being MORE. I don't know if it had to do with where the connections were, or what the deal was.

 

[Hercules10]

I only had problems with their check-in. Several flights, about 300 people trying to check luggage and get boarding passes at the same time and only 2 agents. They had to call the police to keep order until more agents arrived. Flight was OK though...

 

[Cruisin]

We've used Air Tran many times in the past. We fly out of Detroit.

On our last flight in April to Orlando we wanted to get on an earlier flight than the one we purchased so we flew standby. We were all upgraded to Business Class with no extra charge.

On the way back, I mentioned to the flight attendant about some cookies my son had been served on a previous flight that he really liked. He is peanut allergic and sometimes it's hard to get snacks he can actually eat. The flight attendant says, I think I know which ones you mean. Later during the flight she walks by my seat and quickly hands over a cup FULL of these cookies for me to take home to my son. She says, don't let anyone else see these though because they are special cookies.

We are using them again the end of August, so far we haven't had any complaints and we hope it stays that way.

 

[budbeerlady]

We are trying them for the 1st time this December. They were doing $79 each way from Midway to MCO, it came to $175.10 with all the fees and taxes. That was 60+ less than others I saw. We are flying on a Sunday so I knew it would be higher for us.

 

[tkd lisa]

I guess I'm the exception, which is surprising, because I'm normally very easy to please.

I had to take Air Tran on my last trip back to Md (contract carrier changed), and I wasn't thrilled. The planes were REALLY cramped. I'm a size 6, 5'4" person, so I have never had problems, but I was jammed in this time. We went in (and out) of the oldest, un-refurbished terminal at BWI, and it was really nasty (probably not AirTrans' fault, but it was really icky). The return flight, the plane was delayed at least an hour and they gave us NO notice of when it would get there. They didn't even acknowledge it was late until the departure time had come and gone. Given the icky terminal, I would have gone to a different one to get something to eat if I had know I had a full hour. As it was, the only food there had HUGE lines, so I went hungry.

Now on the good side, their crew seemed very friendly. They were more personable, and less "bored" than standard. Kind of similar to SW, but in a more urban way? (Most SW attendant's I've had have been from the south or southwest areas, so there people come off more like a southern belle, whereas these people were definitely city, but nice). They also offer free earphones (the cheap plastic ones, but FREE), and XM radio.

JMHO, but that's what you asked for.

 

[Micca]

We've used it quite a bit and have had mostly good luck.