AirTran has ticked me off, and my flight isn't til June!

[martinp13]

I fly American a lot, and often they modify the times for specific flights weeks in advance of the flight. Maybe +/- 15 minutes, to ease traffic flow I'm sure. No biggie.

I booked my June flights to Orlando on AirTran, the DFW->MCO leaving at 830am and the return flight the next weekend from MCO at 1110am.

I checked the website yesterday and got a rude shock. The return flight is no longer leaving at 1110am... it's leaving at 150pm. 2+ hours???? The flight down is worse: now it leaves DFW at 700am . How can they do that?

There's no need to try and change my flights: there aren't any flights at the times I wanted to fly (which was 830am and 11am!).

Is there a limit how much they can move a flight? I mean, if they moved one to 3am, would I be stuck flying then? For a change like this, they should have to pay ME a $50 change fee!

PS: To add insult to injury, I didn't get any email notification. Had I not looked at the website, I could have shown up at the airport at 715am and my flight would be GONE.

 

[JFrey4240]

We got a phone call from AirTran today about our flights in April--time change. Our flight back is the last flight and was leaving at 6:55 PM and is now leaving at 5:30 PM with a lovely, long layover. Before it was about an hour layover and now we have over two hours to enjoy the Atlanta airport. You should call because the agent offered to change that flight to a different time and even to the next day which I decided to decline. Good luck with your flights!

 

[mittelst]

Airtran is notorious for making big changes. I had a friend who had non-stop flights changed to 1-stop. They also shortened my vacation by a couple of hours one year. I was not notified of changes either. It can't hurt to give them a call and see what your alternatives are.

 

[martinp13]

Thanks for the ideas, gang. Another problem is that with the arrival earlier and the departure later, I have to jump through hoops or I have to pay an extra day on the rental car!

 

[ohiomom28]

Mine are still on schedule. Let's hope they don't change in the next 10 days!!

 

[shelleybell]

May I ask what you paid?

We are flying out of DFW, and are paying $216. That is about what I pay on AA no matter when I fly. Just wondering if I should look into Airtran for our next trip. Doesn't it get discouraging when you see others on the board that get flights for $98 RT?

Thank you!

shelleybell

 

[luvdisney999]

I know I hated the way that AirTran treated me a few months back.

I had booked my parent's 25th wedding anniversary cruise and trip to Florida and the Caribbean. Less than 20 days before the trip, I went on-line to see how full their flight was. Little did I know that AirTran had completely changed their flights. If they'd kept what I'd booked, they would miss their boat!!!

If I hadn't checked on-line, they would have been stranded at the airport with no way to get to their cruise ship on-time! No phone call, no e-mail, no communication of any kind from AirTran!!!

I called AirTran to see what they could do. Their response was... "We can book you on flight A or flight B, that's it." Flight A was the one where they'd miss the boat and Flight B was the day before when they both had to work. I tried to explain this to them and they wouldn't do anything about it. I finally told my parents and my Dad was furious! He called up AirTran and told them the situation. He demanded a supervisor.

Now, I was also flying down to Orlando to meet them after the cruise and had booked AirTran also. Well, I did not trust them anymore (b/c my flight time had also changed from late morning to like 4:00 pm! I would lose the whole first day and my parents couldn't do anything but wait for me!). Dad demanded a FULL refund and they told him that they would give him a CREDIT for a future flight. He told them that he would NEVER fly their airline again after all this and told them he would call the credit card company to stop payment. They finally, reluctantly, gave him the full refund he asked for.

We re-booked with Southwest and have had nothing but success with this airline! They allow changes, have cheaper flights, and run LOTS of specials. Don't know if that helps you or not. Bottom line: if you paid with a credit card, you can fight the charge b/c Airtran isn't delivering what the service you paid for. AirTran should give you a refund, if that's what you want.

Just wanted to let you know you aren't alone. One simple response from them could have prevented this. They screwed up, they didn't inform us of any change (which is more imporant than the time change aspect itself).

Enjoy your trip and forget about them. You have support here!

 

[wdwgoofeeee]

You will likely get an e-mail from AirTran about the schedule change. This happened to us and I eventually got an e-mail, although MUCH after I found the schedule change on their web site.
I wish they would stick to a schedule and make everyone's life easier. They are pretty good overall, but this constant changing of their flight times is insane.

 

[emilymad]

I had a similar problem with Airtran last summer. When I asked about not being notified they said they don't send emails until you are under 30 days since the schedule could change again. Once we were under the 30 days we did get notification. We were flying to Ft. Lauderdale for a cruise so the timing was important. They let us change the flights to whatever we wanted. We even switched cities we were flying out of. They offered us full refunds when we called without us asking. We still flew with them since the price was way cheaper then anything else. Once everything was settled we were very happy with Airtran. I really liked being able to pick my seats when I printed boarding passes instead of Southwest's system.

 

[keishashadow]

AirTran has changed our flight times EVERY time on a RT flight. Only once did I get an email notification...usually found out when checking their site myself.

That said, they've always been great about rescheduling the flight if the altered flight was unacceptable (even when using vouchers & credits). No change fee should be involved.

Good luck.

 

[ameraumi]

So far, our flight in April has only been moved back 20 minute both flying down and coming home. I keep checking though because I have heard how bad they are at not notifying you of any changes.

 

[NancyIL]

AirTran isn't the only airline to change flight times. And - you may have more schedule changes between now and June. American has changed flight numbers/flight times/cancelled flights that I've been on - in fact I expect it.

 

[martinp13]

May I ask what you paid?

We are flying out of DFW, and are paying $216. That is about what I pay on AA no matter when I fly. Just wondering if I should look into Airtran for our next trip. Doesn't it get discouraging when you see others on the board that get flights for $98 RT?

Thank you!

shelleybell

Close to $300. AA had slightly cheaper fares, but their times were crappy. On AirTran I could get the cheap fare coming back, but not going. Then when they rearranged the schedule, I could get the cheaper fare ($45 less), but it would cost $50 to change it. Grrrr. Now I'm on the same crappy times as AA, but I paid more.

Thanks to everyone for their inputs. Glad (and mad!) I'm not alone. Right now, there's nothing for me to change to. Even flights to Tampa are at crappy times. I'm going to write a polite letter and complain, since there's no "instant gratification" they can give me. I'll do my taxes this weekend to psyche me up for the letter writing.

 

[martinp13]

The 1:50pm return flight is now 1:30pm... getting a little closer to the original 11:10am.