Beware Airtran
 

My brother, sister-in-law and family booked five tickets on Airtran to fly to Portland, Maine on a Saturday. The Wed. before the trip, my nephew's girlfriend called to verify the flight and was told it was cancelled due to "weather". After many hours of being on hold and many excuses. The airline rebooked the family on two different later flights for that Saturday with one coming in at 4:00 p.m and one coming in around 10:00 p.m. I checked the flight status to make sure that the 4:00 p.m. flight was on time and found out that the original flight they were booked on had landed that morning! When I went to pick up the two family members at the airport, I went to the Airtran check in and asked if the original flight had landed. It had. I can only surmise that the flight was overbooked and Airtran did not want to compensate.

Unreal. I think if an agent had told me on a Wed that a Sat flight was cancelled because of weather, I'd have asked what they were smoking on their break. That's not a slam at the girlfriend - just can't believe they'd use that as an excuse 3 days before a flight. This wasn't in the middle of a snow/ice storm that was causing protracted delays, was it? Just curious - did their web site have any info that was different than what she was told?

If it's true that the flight was merely overbooked, and AirTran ied to avoid paying compensation, you have a case with the Dept. of Transportation: dms.dot.gov

Why did the nephews' GF call to confirm the flight in the first place? Has she found out something on their website beforehand that something's wrong with their reservations? Or she just decide to "do it" out of no reason? [Flights on US airlines don't have to be "reconfirmed" for many years now.]

We flew Airtran from Atlanta (thru Baltimore)into Portland Maine at the end of July on a Monday. The second leg was over-booked and they gave the guy who gave up his seat 4 round-trip tickets as compensation.

I can't imagine the initial post being an accurate rendition of the reasons for the changes. I also cannot imagine remaining "on hold" for "many hours," though I do not question the sincerity of the poster.

This happened the last week of July this year. So no ice storms, hurricanes or even thunderstorms predicted.

My nephew's girlfriend checked the airline's web site as my parents flight time in June of this year on Airtran was changed and they never notified them. My sister-in-law then called Airtran, where she was switched between operators and put on hold repeatly. She than called Expedia and was given some help to rebook the flights although they were split up on later flights.

This indeed what happened as I have seen the original confirmations, my relatives are truthful and I spoke to the Airtran representative at the airport my self. If you do a search of Airtran on the Airline section of these forums, you will see a similar situation prior with Airtran.

Oh, so the reservation was made through Expedia? Now, that's a completely different story.

Every now and then, a post appears on Fodor's about problems with air reservations made through Orbitz, Expedia, or any such website.

Whenever a third party is involved, it's a recipe for disaster, unfortunately. Expedia will say, it's the airline's fault, the airline will say it's Expedia's fault...

Could've happened with any airline, not just Airtran.

<i>Flights on US airlines don't have to be &quot;reconfirmed&quot; for many years now.</i>

Not quite. I have just been told to call 72 to 48 hours in advance to confirm a flight leaving August 29 on Delta.

All sorts of bad things happen when one tries to talk to a customer non-service person these days. Often it is a language/outsourcing problem, I believe. And when you are done, it is always your word against theirs.

Since flights get cancelled, times changed, etc so often, I find the best way to check on existence of your reserved flights is to do so on-line. It is always possible to go to something with a title similar to &quot;itinerary&quot; and enter confirmation number and/or name - and there you are.

This also works with Expedia et al - although you often have to go to their website rather than that of the airline.

And all this said, I am no fan of AirTran - partly because they seem to have computer problems. I boarded a flight in February with family, boarding passes in hand, to find another family, with equally valid boarding passes in our seats. (or we were trying for their seats).

However, unlike other airlines, personnel were very nice and tried to help -although hindered by computer problems and they were forced to use paper manifests to fix the situation.

But wasn't the original point that the OP believes AirTran lied about weather in order to avoid offering a reward ticket? If true, that's a punishable offense and worth pursuing with the DOT.

It's kind of unfortunate, but when you book through an agent and the initial travel hasn't commenced, one has to go through the booking agent to make changes.

Anyways, I really don't know what had happened to the OP's family. Whole thing seems overly strange to me, but what do I know...