Airtran is the worst airline ever.

I have read all of the complaints about Airtran and by the way I saw that that

company is run, I am not suprised. I had a 11:15AM flight from ATL to BOS

today (Dec 17, 2005) and I pulled up to curb-side check out at 10AM. I had

flown Delta a lot lately, even on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and one

hour was more then enough time. I was told that the curb-side check in line

was shorter than the indoor one, so I took the worker's advice and stood at

the back. Forty-five minutes later at 10:45, I got to the front of the line

and went up to the curb-side check out counter, and it was 35 degrees out so I

was very cold. The man said that since I was not 45 minutes early that "I

missed my flight." I told him that I could easily make my plane and told him

that I knew he had the power to check me in if i wanted to. He told me to

wait in another line. I told him that I was in line over and hour prior and

he said that you have to be at the check-in at that time. We argued a little

more and he threatened to call the cops on me. I reluctently decided to wait

in the other line. This other line did not move and actually took up one of

the 4 highway lanes of the top deck of the ATL airport! Basically the point

of this line was to hold people who "missed" their flight by not being within

45 mins of check-in time. There were about 100 people in this line and there

was no one at the front resolving our situations. The lady in front of me was

a travel agent (not for airtran) and told me that they could easily have

checked us in and she booked another flight to her destination hours later. I

called 1-800-AIRTRAN and after 15 minutes also booked another flight after

having to fight about the 50 dollar changing fee due to them being

overbooked. At this point it was noon and I hadn't eaten a thing and was

standing out in 35 degree weather for 2 hours in only a sweatshirt. I booked

a flight for 1:40 via Baltimore Washington International because I was afraid

airtran would not let me on a flight that left VIA Ohio that left at 12:30

even though I was standing at the gate. After my layover, I got into Boston

at 6pm, 4 hours after my scheduled flight.

I know this isn't the worst story, but there was absolutely no weather or

other mechanical problems. The problem was simply that airtran was way

overbooked and did not allow passengers to check-in legitamately because they

would have to give them all vouchers, like a real airline does such as Delta.

They sucessfully involintarily bumped me, as well as all the other passengers

in my line, without giving me a voucher, and got away with it. As I was at

the airport, I met a guy also going to boston on my BWI connection flight and

he was supposed to leave non-stop from atlanta at 9:30. He was waiting in the

cold for 4 hours. Also the inside line was 3 times longer, so I can only

imagine those customers' frusteration! Also, there was a few curb-side

checkers that were walking through the line taking bribes for people who

wanted to check-in. I met a college student who paid 5 dollars just to get

his reservation, and another 5 dollars so that his bags would get to where

they are supposed to. This situation is outrageous and basically AirTran does

not care about their passengers at all. This is not a problem because I'm

pretty sure soon they won't have any. I will never fly airtran again even if

I'm offered free tickets. This was my first and only Airtran reservation that

I will ever make. Unfortunately, I have a return flight back to Atlanta on

January 8th, and I am already dreading it!

Jay Jackson

Email User