AirTran Review

AirTran, AirTran, AirTran. This was by far the worst airline experience of my life, and I've had some pretty hairy experiences on other airlines before.

My brother and I were flying from SFO to Milwaukee on a Friday to meet a friend. The flight was to go from SFO to Atlanta, then from Atlanta to Milwaukee. We checked weather and flight info ahead a time, and though heard there was a chance of thunderstorms in the Milwaukee/Chicago area, it seemed everything was on schedule...until we got to the AirTran gate at SFO.

There, the attendant (whose name tag read "Mel") told us that all flights to Milwaukee and Chicago had been canceled for the day due to a weather advisory. The best I could do was fly on to their hub in Atlanta as scheduled and hope I could find a flight to Milwaukee the next day if the weather cleared up.

Not only did this sound really iffy, but I had a one-time-only event going on in Chicago on Saturday, so flying that day was not possible. I asked her if I could get a refund. She called her manager over the phone, and was told she could give us credit, but no refund. I asked to her hold off, as I was going to ask around the airport to see what my options were.

To my surprise, it seemed that every other airline at SFO had no idea about this weather advisory, and had flights going into Milwaukee and Chicago. I finally booked a flight to Chicago (close enough) for considerably more money. I wanted to stop and talk to AirTran again, but the line was too long and my new flight was departing in 30 mins, so off through security I went.

Once at the terminal, I called AirTran's customer service on the white courtesy phone in hopes of securing that voucher, and was informed -- get this -- that the FLIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN CANCELED. They had no idea why Mel would tell me it was, because their system showed it confirmed on time.  There was nothing they could do for me at all.

I called AirTran back a couple days later when I wasn't in the middle of a busy airport, and they confirmed that there had been no cancellation. They couldn't do anything for me though, the best they could do was give me a new number to lodge a formal complaint so, seriously, "this wouldn't happen to someone else."

Because of their attendant's "little mistake," I spent nearly $1,000 extra, had to scramble at the airport, then had to take a 3-hour bus from Chicago to Milwaukee to get to where I had already paid in advance to get to. Whenever I called anyone to try to get help with my situation, I was treated with suspicion and rudeness. Oh yeah, like I'm really trying to scam you for free tickets on your AWESOME airline. Completely unacceptable.

Would not recommend ever. I'm not even going to get into the horrible, sardine-like conditions we were subject to on the return flight (which went off without hitch, at least). Even if they gave me a free voucher for all this nonsense, I would never use it, after being treated like I have been.