Sunday February 24th the weather was perfect nationwide. No weather delays, but in the ATL airport hundreds of passengers stood by and watched as AirTran airlines overbooked several flights. Departing Dallas ontime, I was completely suprised by the slow take off and travel time. We arrived and had to sprint to a different terminal. We arrived at our 9:20 departure at the gate at 9:08 and the doors were closed and there was NO ONE even at the gate to explain to us why the doors were closed. The plane sat at the end of the gate for 15-20 minutes before backing away while I stood there with several others holding our tickets in our hands. The customer service was defensive and completely unhelpful stating that they had over booked every flight the next day until 9:30 pm. After asking why all their flights are overbooked she responded, "We overbook every one of our flights. It is the only way for us to guarantee that we have full flights. We are running a business here." This is a terrible way to run a business, but if this is how you run a business, then be prepared to compensate your customers. Airtran handed out ZERO flight vouchers to our party or any party I spoke with that day in the terminal. After watching being told by several customer service folks that they DO NOT offer hotel vouchers, finally after over 3 hours of complaining, I received a voucher for a $39 hotel near the airport. After telling them that their printed policy is to give 2X flight value to customers not rescheduled within 2 hours of their flight in the form of vouchers, the supervisor told me they do not and will not get into policy discussions. I have gathered several names and am pursuing a class action law suit against AirTran. Please email me your information, story and phone number to
airtrancomplaints@yahoo.com
They will pay all their customers are entitled to!