AirTran Airways = Garbage

[Guest nickcabral]

So...My Wife goes to Florida in mid June. We go often since her entire family lives there. She fly's AirTran as usual, which we so far we have been pleased with.

On her way home, her flight gets canceled. Mechanical problems they say. No problem, who wants to fly in a broken aircraft. AirTran's solution was give my Wife a 10 dollar certificate for food and put her on an evening flight. Okay, no big deal that I missed out on O.T. to pick her up and she missed going to work that afternoon, things happen right? Well as her second flight approaches it gets delayed, then delayed again. 15 minutes before boarding it gets canceled all together.

Some of you may be thinking, "Its Florida in mid June, weather must be the cause". I dont think so. Jet Blue had a flight leave for White Plains while my Wife was there, and AirTran itself had a flight leave for Stewart. So my only assumption could be another mechanical problem. Does AirTran not employ mechanics? Do they not maintain airworthiness on their fleet? Or is it that they just have alot of junk aircraft?

So at this point AirTran, my wife, and myself are having a bad day. How does AirTran fix this problem you ask? By putting my wife on a flight the next morning and being so gracious as to give her a coupon for a whopping 10 percent off a hotel stay. Boy is that impressive! Not wanting her to pay for a hotel, my wife's Aunt drives the hour and a half to pick her up only to drop her back off 12 hours later at the airport. ($8 in tolls each way by the way)

So the next day AirTan actually puts a plane into the sky. (Just when I thought they were giving up in the aviation industry.) When my wife gets to White Plains she discovers that out of 2 checked in bags, one is missing and one must have taken a side trip to the demolition derby because its trashed and damaged. Now very tee'd off we call AirTran customer service. It only took 30 minutes to get through to a human on the other end of the line. Customer service didnt seem to care very much and gave my Wife a round trip voucher to use on a future trip. Tired of arguing we settled for the free airfare.

Now flash foward a week. My wife decides to use the airfare to pick up her nephew in Florida in July so he could spend a few weeks with us up here. She calls AirTran to book and is told she can't use the voucher because the plane is too full to give away a seat for free. W...T....F? Acording to the web site there was more than 50% capacity left to book on the flight. The plane is too full to use a free voucher? Because my nephews flight was already booked on AirTran, we were forced to pay for our booking. Maybe if we book now for a 2010 flight we could use the free voucher???

Meanwhile, back on June 13th I had fired off a letter to AirTran customer service and corporate. I dont expect to hear back from either. Their customer service has been less than desirable so far.

The moral of my rant here is.....BOYCOTT AIRTRAN. I am very displeased with the service lately. Maybe AirTran is just getting too big with its added destinations and buyout of MidWest Airlines.

So I hear Jet Blue is nice right???

[ex-commish 490]

I have flown Jet-Blue on a few occasions and have never had any problems in fact I am flying them to California at the end of this month.

[PC_420 28]

Yes! Jet Blue is the ultimate in flying to destinations. There is no serious competition. great service and great birds and great people. The only possible competition is when Virgin America comes out, but we will see.

[AFS1970 504]

I have never flown AirTran, but I have flown Jet Blue, and unlike most of the folks on this forum, I wouldn't fly Jet Blue again if they were the only airline left in the world AND the tickets were free. Although I do know that evey airline has it's share of horror stories, it is not so much the problem that occurs but the way in which the airline handles the problem through customer service that is the deciding factor for me. I can see whay you would boycott AirTran after reading your story.

[TRUCK6018 50]

If you going to remember anything about Air Tran, remember this... They picked up the pieces of Value Jet after the deadly Everglades, Florida crash in 1996. In 1997 Air Tran and Value Jet merged operations.

[x129K 1,393]

Wheeeew!~

I booked tickets to Florida in 3 weeks on AirTran - but they're sight would not accept my card....

I ended up booking with Jet Blue instead....they had no trouble taking my $$$$!

[x635 4,066]

jetBlue ROCKS! Best airline ever. I always fly them when I can, and am a very happy stockholder!!

I told you so!

However, I too can't wait to Virgin America, hopefullly their introductory fares will enable me a buff trip to LA when I get back to work and better!