ATA loses my business, Air Tran picks it up.

[Chitown]

O.K. here is the story of my airline ordeal during my recent visit to Florida.

I book my usual tickets with ATA because they were the only airline that flew non-stop from Chicago to Sarasota.

I am scheduled to leave on ATA on Halloween day. The Thursday prior to that I get a call from ATA stating they have discontinued service to Sarasota due to lack of interest which I find complete bull.

They try to accomodate me by transferring my ticket to another airline. Problem is they don't have deals with airlines like Delta and American which do fly into Sarasota but only on stop-over flights. So they tell me I can fly out of Ohare on United or Southwest but I would have to fly into Tampa which is about 65 miles from Sarasota. I reluctantly agree to a United flight.

After that I do some searching online and discover that Air Tran now has a non-stop flight from Chicago to Sarasota. I still wasn't going to book it initially because I thought with only 4 days notice I would be charged out the ass. Well, to my surprise the total cost for a round trip ticket non stop both ways came to $176.00 including fees. I immediately booked that flight and had ATA refund my money.

ATA's loss is now Air Trans gain for alot of folks including me. By the way, Air Tran is a great airline and we were flying in early both ways.

[Aero737]

Gratz

[Galvan]

Air Tran is an excellent airline...

There business model is similar to Southwest's or ATA's.


There Boeing 717,A320,737-600 fleet is also one of the youngest in the air today.

[msoeagle]

What a hassle.