AirTran or Southwest???

[Iluvthemouse]

Same price.. Southwest little better times.
But I like that I can get advanced seats with Air Tran. Both nonstop and there are 2 adults and 1 6yo traveling.

Any ideas??

 

[rkmassa]

Avoid the cattle call of no reserved seating. Fly Airtran. We are going with SW just because they have non-stop flights. Not looking forward to the cattle call. If Airtran had non-stop flights and the same price, we would fly Airtran. Have flown with them the last 4 times and loved it.

 

[djbleach]

The only plus that I see in Airtran is they are suppose to have all New airplanes that 'pump' in fresh air.
We've flown both, and I will fly on which one has the best rate. For us to Orlando, they both have direct flights.
As far as the "cattle call". With Southwest, after 12 am on your flight day, you can go online and get your boarding pass. So you are almost guaranteed to get A if you do this. So we get our boarding pass online. Then we curbside check in and go straight to the gate. Since we have a child under two, we preboard. Anyway. They both are great airlines, so you won't go wrong.
The thing I love about SW is when the fare has gone down in the past, they have matched the price and credited our card. I'm not sure airtran will do this?
something to think about.

 

[rkmassa]

Airtran will not adjust your fare without a rebooking fee. We had the fare that we bought go down, and we found that out the hard way. No credit unless we rebooked with a fee. Of course the savings did not warrant the rebooking.

 

[Yardbird]

The thing I love about SW is when the fare has gone down in the past, they have matched the price and credited our card. I'm not sure airtran will do this?
something to think about.

Airtran will NOT do this. They charge you 50.00 for each change you make, not including any increase in airfare.

We have flown with Airtran numerous times, and I have always been fairly happy with them. However, this past trip they changed flight numbers and times, twice. They did eventually call us to let us know of the change.

Southwest is fine too, and I like the fact that if you need to change your flight, they don't charge you to change it unless there is an increase in fare. Next trip, we're flying Southwest.

 

[Iluvthemouse]

Thanx everyone. I am not worried about the fare going down since it is running 116.0 roundtrip now but I do like the advanced seating so it looks like we will go with AirTran.

 

[DVC-Don]

SW will not change the flight times on you as most other airlines do.

 

[C.Ann]

Another SouthWest fan here!

 

[welovedis]

SW will not change the flight times on you as most other airlines do.

Since when? I've flown 4 times with SWA & our flight times were changed by more than an hour 3 times!

 

[Disneyjosh229]

Southwest!!!!!!!!

 

[simzac]

Since when? I've flown 4 times with SWA & our flight times were changed by more than an hour 3 times!

Our family has made 3 round trip flights on SW since 2003, always booked as soon as my dates were available, and never had our flight times changed. Maybe we were just lucky though.

 

[maryliz]

When you say that you get "advanced seating" with Air Tran, do you mean that you are just assigned your seat when you get your boarding pass at the airport, or can you do something ahead of time? Flying AirTran in Aug, but did SWA in Jan and would certainly fly with them again in a heartbeat.

Hoping we're as satisfied with Air Tran, although we do have to change planes in Atlanta. All info is appreciated.

MaryLiz

 

[Lewisc]

For that price I'd book AirTran, as long as your plans are set in stone. Book your hotel first.

welovdis--Were your flights changed in advance, schedule change, or were the flights delayed when you got to the airport. SW rarely changes the schedule once it's released but they can't control weather related delays the day of the flight.

 

[welovedis]

maryliz-you can go online 24 hours before your flight and choose your seats at that point, print out the boarding passes too. If you pay for the business class seats up-front, you can choose your seats when you purchase them.

I also like AirTran because they offer the "bump" to business class for $35/seat, when space is available. Sometimes we don't want to be in coach for a particular flight and it is nice to have the extra space (and according to DH & DS--good cookies) when you can.

I'm not knocking SWA--good prices, nice policy about changes or price adjustments. But to say that they don't change their flight schedules is just not a completely accurate thing to say. Perhaps they don't change all their flight schedules but we've had our fair share of them!

I do like AT's new planes and the "fresh air" seems to make a difference for DS' allergies at least. I guess if you are concerned that you might have to change a flight time or date for some reason and don't want to have to pay a fee, then go with SWA. Otherwise I'd go for AT and get the seats you'd like the day before.

GL!

 

[welovedis]

Lewisc--twice the flights were changed well in advance of our trip (about 30 days) and once the change occurred when we were about 3 days out--they dropped a flight and were changing their schedule around according to the CS person we spoke with. Actually the 4th trip was delayed because of weather but I don't count that since it could happen/does happen with any airline.

I thought it was interesting about the changes because we had heard they always stick to their posted schedules. We wanted specific times because they corresponded with our work and our DS' school schedules and we ended up not leaving at the times we wanted.

However, we fly pretty often (I've logged about 20 flights this year, DH over 50 and DS about 20) so we don't get too upset over things like this. I just didn't like the way they handled the changes that were 3 days out. Anyway-noy knocking them but they certainly did change our flights--perhaps it is out of the ordinary--but it happened nonetheless.

 

[Lewisc]

What airport do you fly out of? I know SW made a few changes to free up aircraft when they added/expanded service from PIT and PHL but most of us find schedule changes to be very rare.

Lewisc--twice the flights were changed well in advance of our trip (about 30 days) and once the change occurred when we were about 3 days out--they dropped a flight and were changing their schedule around according to the CS person we spoke with. Actually the 4th trip was delayed because of weather but I don't count that since it could happen/does happen with any airline.

I thought it was interesting about the changes because we had heard they always stick to their posted schedules. We wanted specific times because they corresponded with our work and our DS' school schedules and we ended up not leaving at the times we wanted.

However, we fly pretty often (I've logged about 20 flights this year, DH over 50 and DS about 20) so we don't get too upset over things like this. I just didn't like the way they handled the changes that were 3 days out. Anyway-noy knocking them but they certainly did change our flights--perhaps it is out of the ordinary--but it happened nonetheless.

 

[welovedis]

We fly out of Buffalo, 1 flight BUF to MSY, 2 were BUF to OAK. I honestly don't know why there were so many issues, but it did happen to us and 3 times out of 4 is pretty tough to forget. I keep a detailed travelogue and note issues we have with airlines /hotels/etc... when we travel (just a little weird thing I do) I'd be happy to send you my notes since it seems so hard to believe.