SWA & AirTram

[jhoannam]

Has anyone flow on any experience with this partnership? what was your experience like? I just looked up our flight and it seems that we can pick our seats on Airtram (second flight), but for $10 each ($40 total). At this point there are only 18 available seats, still 65 days out.


There are other non airtram flights that day for only $4/ticket ($16 total). I'm so torn, because this fight departs at 8:40AM and the other option departs at 6:05AM.

 

[jimandami]

When you check-in online for your Airtran flight, you will be given a seat assignment unless you pay the $10 to choose your seat. Your seats may or may not be together. Once at the gate, you can request 2 seats together, which may or may not be granted. Another thing to note is that if you are using MDE and all that jazz, you will likely not be able to check your bags at your hotel for the return flight (I am assuming you have a mixed SWA/AT itinirary) because there is some sort of computer issue at the resorts. So, you will need to be prepared to take your luggage on MDE with you to check in at MCO. I would recommend using the skycap outside as the line inside for SW/AT is often crazy long.

 

[Dwheels]

I have flown both airlines. I prefer SW however we flew AirTran last year because it was cheaper. We booked our seats for only $6 because there were plenty available. When we got on our plane that was full people were outraged and angry because they couldn't sit together! Walking around begging people to give up their seats! It was ridiculous the flight got delayed they were complaining cursing yelling and screaming they it was the airline's fault! Nope it was their fault they didn't want to spend the extra money to reserve a seat! It clearly states the seating process on their website when you book your flight. You can't expect people to give up a seat for you. My advice for you is save the aggravation and just buy your seats! Trust me you will be more relaxed knowing you have a seat.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

I just looked up our flight and it seems that we can pick our seats on Airtram (second flight), but for $10 each ($40 total).

The name of the airline is AirTran, with an n not an m (full name AirTran Airways). I'm not trying to nitpick here, but you need to use the correct name to get results from Google searches and DISboards searches.

At this point there are only 18 available seats, still 65 days out.

There are probably far more than 18 seats available, even if only 18 seats show online as available for advance seat assignment.

All airlines hold back some seats for assignment only at the airport on the day of the flight. In addition, most airlines only "show" some seats to frequent flyers and/or passengers in higher fare classes; these also become available at the airport on the day of the flight.

That being said, I agree that it's worth paying for advance seat assignments if you want to get seat assignments together -- instead of hoping you'll be lucky at the airport.

 

[jhoannam]

Thanks everyone for the replies.. I don't mind paying for seats, we are doing this on our return fight (Allegiant)... I just wasn't aware of the extra money I was going to need to spend when I booked through SWA. I just wish they had the same policies as SWA. I think I might just switch to a SWA only flight schedule. I really didn't want to wake up at 4AM.

 

[DebbieB]

Thanks everyone for the replies.. I don't mind paying for seats, we are doing this on our return fight (Allegiant)... I just wasn't aware of the extra money I was going to need to spend when I booked through SWA. I just wish they had the same policies as SWA. I think I might just switch to a SWA only flight schedule. I really didn't want to wake up at 4AM.

AirTran will no longer exist after December 28, so there will no longer be different policies.

 

[mdsd8700]

We have a flight on Air Tran through the SW site for a flight in November. We are not sure we can take this trip. Won't know for at least another month (or later), so I don't want to pay for seats if we can't go. There are 4 of us, all adults so not a big deal if we don't sit together. However there are very few seats left at this point (at least what they show) however nearly all of the exit rows are available at this point. Certainly don't want to pay for those seats. If at 24 hours those seats are available do they assign them even if you haven't paid for them? Just curious as to how it works because we have never flown Air Tran.

 

[bookgirl]

I did not like it. I had connection flights the first being a SW and the second being a AT.

Because they use two different seating systems I could check in (or in my case early bird check in) like usual on SW but on AirTran it would not let me pick seating until I checked in, the website said at the gate but I was told it would be at the online checkin (early bird) and then it would automatically assign us our AirTran seats.

I did not know this until after I bought that flight. I was traveling with my mom (I paid cash and she used her points) so we had separate confirmations. So we would be assigned as two separate passengers not a 'party of 2'.

She's elderly and not a good flyer so it majorly stressed her out which in turn made me feel awful for buying the stupid tickets in the first place.

So I called to see about changing flights or what could be done. There weren't really any other working flights time wise, so we had to go with the airline 'making a note' that the two confirmations numbers were traveling together and would prefer to sit together as well. There was no guarantee that we would be seated together but it might.

We did get lucky and were seated together. Crappy seats but together.

It also will not let you use resort checkin on MDE if you have AT and SW as a mixed itinerary.

I refuse to use the AT system until they fully merge and are using the same system.