SW Buys Airtran!

[keishashadow]

im not dancingPIT is small airport with limited flights compared to other airports. Not only will this decrease the number of flights to cities served by both airlines in the past, the fare war will be finito. I quit flying USAir when AT came to town & their rates were 1/3rd the price of the legacy carriers (and the planes were much newer!)

now, im afraid that, if SWA has no other discount competition in the 'burg, they will raise their rates dramatically. No problem to do so as they'll still be priced much lower than the other carriers. jmho, akin to being what i consider a true discount air monopoly now at least in my area.

doubtful i'll get to use my automatic 1st class upgrades i received for flight issue on AT last July, or whether my reward points will vanish, and who knows what will happen to the current AT credit card credits.. Chase (SWA's affinity CC) was a beast when it came to changing rates & imposing nuisance fees during the credit crunch, to the point where I cancelled 2 cards & many of my friends did the same. My primary one now earns me the AT rewards points as a signature line of credit thru Barclays with a ridiculousy low rate that didn't change in the last few years (other than a $49 fee that earned me 2 $50 credits a year)...will be interesting to see if how new credit rules will come into play here.

 

[wed100105]

Add us to the sad list. We fly nonstop out of Bloomington. I loved our last flights. We had a great plane, nice service, and the option to prepurchase our seats together all for $200 pp including taxes. My mom did pay for baggage, but that was because we went two weeks and she brought enough for two years.

I bought tickets last month for our trip in March. I've paid $280 round trip and was hoping to get a credit. That's nonstop Saturday-Sunday. Who knows what the prices will do in the next 18-24 months! DH is military and I was hoping to waive the checked bag fee.

 

[snowy76]

We fly AT out of Rochester and I'm afraid the merger will end service out of that city. SW already serves Buffalo and Albany.

We could fly JB out of Syracuse but find AT to always have better fares. They constantly sell fares well under $100 one way. I haven't seen SW fares out of Buffalo or Albany that low.

 

[Inkmahm]

As for those AT fans pooh-poohing this merger -- you're in a plane for a couple of hours -- do you really need Wi-Fi and XM Radio that badly?

I don't use the XM Radio and rarely use the Wifi, but I DO consistently use the Business class seats. THAT is what I will miss when Airtran goes the way of Midwest. I want my comfy seats!

 

[dburg30]

Oh yea, SW is adding wifi to their planes BTW, dont know if that was mentioned, and at least the ones that are on it now, I swear I saw it was free...

 

[JB2K]

American now will have No competition to Orlando from DFW. The day of the $200 RT is gone. Same thing happened when American had no more competition to Las Vegas. The $200 RT is now $300-$350.

Hopefully it will take a year or more to happen so I can use up all my Rewards.

And, that, my friend, is AA's fault -- they (along with DFW Airport) brokered the Wright Agreement, which was originally intented to move all local airlines from Love Field to DFW (and give the new airport some degree of protection).

If you're not AA, DFW isn't going to be a successful venture -- it was just 5 years ago that Delta rolled-up what was a pretty good-sized hub for them. Obviously, AirTran and the rest couldn't fill that 24-gate void Delta left behind...

FWIW, I am no fan of AA as I am from St. Louis and after TWA's 2001 bankruptcy (and AA's immediate acquisition), AA single-handedly turned over 40 gates into a ghost town.

 

[JB2K]

Sorry - but the pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, reservations agents, ramp agents, customer service agents, aircraft cleaners etc - are ALL union. SW is literally the most heavily unionized airline out there.

Ahem - I was speaking of the folks who worked at the individual destination stations. It goes without saying that the flight crew is represented by their respective unions -- I didn't realize the ground crew had representation, too.

Southwest has previously purchased Morris Air. Not the first time SW has bought another carrier.

I stand corrected - though Morris Air is hardly what we call a major (or memorable) carrier.

 

[ehaley]

Sad, Sad, Sad. Love AT prices, flight times, people. SW just dosen't compare - prices have never been good, nor have flight times, # of stops/plan changes, etc. No charge for bags, but when it takes 4 hrs longer to get there it's not a savings.

 

[DebbieB]

im not dancingPIT is small airport with limited flights compared to other airports. Not only will this decrease the number of flights to cities served by both airlines in the past, the fare war will be finito. I quit flying USAir when AT came to town & their rates were 1/3rd the price of the legacy carriers (and the planes were much newer!)

now, im afraid that, if SWA has no other discount competition in the 'burg, they will raise their rates dramatically. No problem to do so as they'll still be priced much lower than the other carriers. jmho, akin to being what i consider a true discount air monopoly now at least in my area.

It seemed like when US ended their PIT/MCO non-stops, SW's fares went way up. I wanted to fly SW in June 2009 and couldn't get under $360 roundtrip. I think AT was pretty high too. I ended up turning in some Hilton & Hyatt points to get the remaining RR credits I needed for a free ticket. Even then I had to leave a day earlier to get the free ticket.

I don't think this is good news for PIT flyers. My bet is the combined airline will not have as many total flights. Fares will go up. I travel alot for business and have been flying mostly Delta. I've been using reward tickets through them for my Orlando trips. Have to connect but I'm used to that.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

While I did like having a choice between AT, SWA, USAirways and Spirit, though we usually fly SWA. I like they they never change their schedule and there are no change/cancellation/baggage fees.

I can only hope they become a participating airline for DCL's Onboard Check In. It's such a convenient service but had to give it up last time we flew AT. They cancelled our nonstop flight and put us on a connecting one. We had to change to a later nonstop but all that was available was 7 hrs after our originally scheduled departure. So instead of using DCL's convenient transportation, we had to find a car rental and cram in 8 days worth of luggage and find something to do for a few hours. Not a great ending to a very relaxing/pampering cruise. Paid those stupid baggage fees for nothing. Oh wait, we got XM radio....

 

[keishashadow]

We were 'saved' by monitoring price drops for Southwest last year on several PIT/MCO flights resulting in snowballing credits burning hole in my pocket.

This year, rates have been better out of the gate for the dates i've booked, yet still verging on $300 vs $200 pp (or less) i've gotten used to finding.

I'm happy enough to have a $225 credit associated with upcoming trip, but find it odd that our neighbors out east (PHL) rarely pay more than $100 per trip leg during peak travel dates...nwa ha ha say my friends who use it as their home airport.

I understand supply & demand, competition, etc.; just don't think PIT travelers will be getting much luv when the dust settles.

should've known something was afoot when AT started giving credits for price drops this year.

 

[NJRRK]

Even when you add the three new markets which Southwest will begin servicing in March (Charleston SC, Greenville/Spartanburg SC & Newark, NY, if the UA/CO merger closes by the end of November), this is indeed terrific news.

Just a picky note Newark airport is in New Jersey (NJ) not NY. Newark, NY is about 20 miles SW of Rochester.

Sorry but it's a sore spot for some of us native New Jerseians.

This will bring more gates for SW available in EWR to be added to the UA gates they'll be getting once UA/CO mergers and consolidates into Terminal C.

 

[supersuperwendy]

 

[MrMarv]

Southwest will keep those 86 717s they'll inherit from Airtran according to the Dallas Morning News and will offer single-class service on those aircraft.

SWAs corporate headquarters will remain in Dallas and CEO Gary Kelly said that SWA & AT only have 19 routes on which they each offer nonstop service.

Newark, NY--what was I thinking???????

 

[Minniekins]

I'm very, very disappointed in this news for sure. I've not seen any fares close to the fares out of midway on AT and I'm afraid this will double (or even possibly triple?) our rates to Orlando and that put a very big crimp in any trip plans. Looks like our Jan trip will be our last on AT and can only hope to be able to book something acceptable in the future but it sure feels doubtful!

I'm wondering how this will also affect Magical Express use. SW doesn't do ME, isn't that right? It's just myself and DD20 and I really don't want to be in charge of finding our luggage and dragging it to the busses myself, that's very inconvenient, and then trying to drag it to our rooms ourselves. And all so we can pay more and have no assigned seats and maybe no nonstop flights. Yippee!

 

[NJRRK]

I'm wondering how this will also affect Magical Express use. SW doesn't do ME, isn't that right? It's just myself and DD20 and I really don't want to be in charge of finding our luggage and dragging it to the busses myself, that's very inconvenient, and then trying to drag it to our rooms ourselves.(

Two things - 1 - going TO Orlando you could ALWAYS use the yellow tags when flying to MCO, SW at one time was not a participating airline in the RAC for the trip home.

2- SW has participated in RAC at most of the resorts for sometime now. I think RAC will take SW at all resorts now but if they don't it's only one or two resorts that SW does not participate in RAC.

As my DM86 says "Don't sweat the small stuff honey."

 

[dburg30]

I'm wondering how this will also affect Magical Express use. SW doesn't do ME, isn't that right? It's just myself and DD20 and I really don't want to be in charge of finding our luggage and dragging it to the busses myself, that's very inconvenient, and then trying to drag it to our rooms ourselves. And all so we can pay more and have no assigned seats and maybe no nonstop flights. Yippee!

As the PP said, you could ALWAYS use DME from your home airport to WDW. And I THINK CBR is the only resort you cant do RAC BACK to the airport for now with SW.. So more misinformation going around.

As far as the paying more for a flight, maybe, maybe not. Maybe that's why AT is selling, maybe there were some underlying issues, maybe the flights wont go up, maybe you'll still have nonstop choices, maybe everyone should just wait and see what happens.

 

[NJRRK]

As in all things business, some people are going to win, others will lose.

Winners in this case:
SW Airlines
Fliers that will now have SW available in their airports (ATL,EWR ..)
Probably Airtran owners/stockholders.
SW Lovers

Losers in this case:
Airtran emloyees (some)
Airtran Lovers
Airtran elite club members (or whatever their club is called)
Fliers that will now not have a choice of airlines for their flights.
DFW fliers.

There will be more winners and losers, but the above are just a few I thought of.

 

[PSUGuy]

Just a picky note Newark airport is in New Jersey (NJ) not NY. Newark, NY is about 20 miles SW of Rochester.

Sorry but it's a sore spot for some of us native New Jerseians.

I've flown out of EWR twice in the last 3 years and in all honesty, if Newark were a city in Pa., I'd be happy to have the rest of the world think it was in NY.

Bill From PA

 

[bubba's mom]

"nwa ha ha" .... sendin' YOU the luv baby