Boarding once AirTran converts

[leebee]

I have SW reservations for travel in July, but in each direction, one leg is on Southwest and one on AirTran. I have EBCI for the SW legs and expected to have to check in for the AT segments. I just got email that says my home airport will be fully converted to SW by April 15. Should I expect to get EBCI for the AT segments as they will be have completely converted to AT by then?

 

[DebbieB]

I have SW reservations for travel in July, but in each direction, one leg is on Southwest and one on AirTran. I have EBCI for the SW legs and expected to have to check in for the AT segments. I just got email that says my home airport will be fully converted to SW by April 15. Should I expect to get EBCI for the AT segments as they will be have completely converted to AT by then?

Are the flights converted or do they have the check-in combined? At PIT, there is one check-in counter now for both AirTran and SW. You can checkin for either airline at the same kiosk. The flights are still separate. If the flights are converted, they should show as SW on the schedule.

 

[leebee]

When I booked, the flights were listed as SW/AT or AT/SW, depending if it was the outgoing flight or the return, with the appropriate airline's flight numbers on each leg. Today's email from AT indicates that AT is converting to SW as of 4/15; it even says that they will hate losing our business and asks if I still want to stay enrolled for their newsletters. I guess I will wait it out and see what happens. It would be SWEET if these flights were all eligible for EBCI. What I am worried about is that SW will change the itinerary. Guess we'll see; there is still plenty of time.

 

[locodemickey]

When I booked, the flights were listed as SW/AT or AT/SW, depending if it was the outgoing flight or the return, with the appropriate airline's flight numbers on each leg. Today's email from AT indicates that AT is converting to SW as of 4/15; it even says that they will hate losing our business and asks if I still want to stay enrolled for their newsletters. I guess I will wait it out and see what happens. It would be SWEET if these flights were all eligible for EBCI. What I am worried about is that SW will change the itinerary. Guess we'll see; there is still plenty of time.

I don't understand why they would ask if you want to continue receiving the email if they are bought out by Southwest. I got credits from AT last week and they told me they were good for a year. I don't get it!

 

[DebbieB]

When I booked, the flights were listed as SW/AT or AT/SW, depending if it was the outgoing flight or the return, with the appropriate airline's flight numbers on each leg. Today's email from AT indicates that AT is converting to SW as of 4/15; it even says that they will hate losing our business and asks if I still want to stay enrolled for their newsletters. I guess I will wait it out and see what happens. It would be SWEET if these flights were all eligible for EBCI. What I am worried about is that SW will change the itinerary. Guess we'll see; there is still plenty of time.

Are you in Portlane ME? I found this article that says Portland is all SW effective in April. This article is dated October so it doesn't make sense that they would have an AirTran flight on the schedule to/from Portland in July.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/today...hwest-airlines-airtran-merger-cities/1649647/

Is it your connecting flight that is AirTran? For example, if you are flying Portland-Baltimore-Orlando, the Portland-Baltimore will be Southwest but the Baltimore-Orlando is AirTran because those cities are not all converted yet. If that's the case, you cannot get EBCI for the AirTran flight, it will operate as AirTran. Portland can still check you in for a SW connecting to AirTran but the AirTran flight will be AirTran rules.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

I have SW reservations for travel in July, but in each direction, one leg is on Southwest and one on AirTran. I have EBCI for the SW legs and expected to have to check in for the AT segments. I just got email that says my home airport will be fully converted to SW by April 15. Should I expect to get EBCI for the AT segments as they will be have completely converted to AT by then?

Southwest announced that four more airports would convert from AirTran operations to Southwest operations, with April 13 the final day of AirTran-branded service and April 14 the first day of all-Southwest-branded service:

• Charlotte, NC
• Flint, ME
• Portland, ME
• Rochester, NY

The mid-April change is not systemwide and does not fundamentally change how seat assignments work for the two respective brands. Southwest and AirTran still have two different sets of operating procedures, but the two route networks and the two computer systems are now integrated with each other.

An ever-shrinking AirTran will continue to operate at other airports until the brand and the remaining non-737 aircraft eventually go away entirely, which is now expected to happen in 2015.