Air Tran- getting seats at check in?

[diz_princess]

I was on AirTrans website and was looking at a web fare. It lists that seats offered at this cheap fare can not be assigned until check in. In the grand scheme of things I'm sure we'll be fine but I'm traveling with my 2 yo son alone. If we check in 2 hours before our flight should we have no problems getting seats together? Or is this their way to fill random single seats on the plane? I really don't want the stress of having to ask someone to move so we can seat together.
Anyone flown with this type of rate?
TIA,

 

[Drcell01]

Most people are in the same boat as you are (we are flying Airtran on 2/19). My suggestion would be to stay up late the night before and check in at 12:01am to choose the best seats available. My experience has been that checking in at this hour results in obtaining very good seats.

Good Luck!

 

[Duckster]

We are in the same boat. I have never checked in online prior to getting to the airport before. Can you still do this if you are checking baggage? If not, how does this work? Does the fact that I will have kids travelling with us prohibit us from checking in online?

 

[Nala56]

We just flew Air-Tran to DW 1/20. DH, DD and myself. We had a 11:00am flight so I got online 24 hours in advance to print boarding pass. They had already assigned us seats, we had 2 seats together and 1 accross the aisle. I was able to change them so we were all together in same row. It was really easy. I printed the boarding passes after changing the one seat. When we got to airport, Pittsburgh, we had to check our luggage, they asked for printed boarding passes and I.D. I showed them my homeprinted passes, they said "good to go" and we were on our way through security. My printed passes were all we needed. We were never given any official airline printed boarding passes. When coming home ( we stayed at AKL), the night before we went down to check-in, and they were able to print out our boarding passes for us. Air-tran isn't one the airlines eligible for ME baggage return, so we had to take our luggage with us on the ME bus. Once again, very easy. The driver loaded luggage underneath the bus and unloaded when dropped us off in front of Air-Tran.

 

[Nala56]

I forgot to answer one of your questions. We have DD, 13, and were still able to print her boarding pass. So you will be able to check in online without any problem.

 

[safetymom]

You can check in 24 hours before your flight. You can pick your seats at that time. On your return trip you could have someone check you in and then print the boarding pass at the airport. If you check in early enough you won't have any problems sitting next to each other.

 

[wdwgoofeeee]

As already noted, get on the AirTran web site 24 hours up to 90 minutes before your flight. Pick out your seats and print out your boarding passes. If for some reason you cannot print out your boarding passes pick out your seats anyway and you can get the boarding passes at the airport counter or the kisoks. We have done this numerous times with AirTran and it is very easy to do. For the return trip we had someone log on for us and pick out seats. They also faxed our boarding passes to our Disney resort. I understand from numerous posts that your Disney resort will print out the boarding passes for you if you go to the concierge desk.
We only use carry-on luggage so once we get to the airport it's through security and directly to the gate. If you have luggage to check you will have to go the AirTran counter or use the sky caps outside the airport.

 

[diz_princess]

Thank you!! That will make it so much easier to check in online! I didn't know Airtran did this. I usually fly Southwest who does the same thing.

 

[travlnman1]

But just so you know...
If you book Air Tran reservations through a travel agency, we can assign seats when you purchase your tickets. I can pre-assign seats for ANY FARE paid.
None of this 24 hours in advance stuff.

 

[grammagail]

I have a little question about these assigned seat. I'm flying AirTran for the first time also - got a decent "web" fare price. On their website, it looked like the higher priced seats, you could pick your seat at the time of purchase. Then it had a 2nd tier of prices, that looked like you could pick your seats 24-hours in advance. However, my confirmation states that I need to do airport check in - due to the low price I paid.

So - do you think I might possibly be able to still do the online seat check-in, 24 hours in advance?

Guess it won't hurt to try the day before.

 

[Nala56]

I also had a great price flying Airtran. The web site said because of low price, I couldn't do on-line check in, but I could. I don't know why it says that, but you can check in 24 hours on-line in advance of flight time.