AirTran updates Reservations website

[DonVerita]

To all you commuters out there...

www.airtran.com
has been updated to get in line with the rest of the major airline industry regarding viewing seat availability. You no longer need to play that mickey mouse game of using the drag down menu to put "9" seats in the request window to get somewhat of an idea of what availability is.

Now just put in "1" and then the system takes you to a listing of all flights that have at least "1" seat open. Look for the new chair symbol. Click on that and a seating diagram will appear...just like on Delta or American. Yeah, they skimped on the colors, but it gets the job done and there will probably be program updates down the road.

Having said that, let me head off the next inevitable question/flame...

Yes, unfortunately the management greed-induced BS $25 non-rev charge is still in effect (for now) after the 1st jumpseat is taken (2nd in some 737's). Many times the gate agents don't bother charging at all. The removal of this POS policy is a top priority for the pilot group so needless to say, it WILL be going away once we sign a fair and equitable contract. Don't hijack this thread talking about what a disgrace the proposed T/A is. That is being discussed elsewhere on this forum.

 

[fletch717]

Hey, What's up with this crappy TA. Who would accept this B.S. What about the 25 dollar jumpseat fee?

 

[Av8tor]

Now if we could list ourself on a flight I would be impressed!

 

[ATLDRVR]

The problem is it shows available seats not how many people have bought tix on the flight. Not everyone who has purchased a ticket for the flight is able to pre-select a seat. I am flying an ATL-SEA flight next week that I know is oversold because I checked the computer at the airport but when I went to check available seats on the website it showed at least 15 seats available.

 

[doer42]

ATLDVR hit the nail on the head, not everybody picks their seat when you purchase a ticket!

 

[mynameisjim]

And sometimes seats are blocked off but aren't sold. So you never can tell that way. Seat's taken.

 

[DC10]

Actually we can list ourselves, however not from home. You can log into any Air Tran computer (crew room or any Air Tran gate computer) with your employee number and password (get it from Bill T in the CP's office), and on the 'today' site you can do all your non-rev listings including checking loads.

Unfortunately we can't do this from home yet, but I always do it from the crew room for my next week's trip after commuting into ATL. It would be great if we could do this from home, but this is better than nothing and it beats calling reservations.

 

[DonVerita]

The problem is it shows available seats not how many people have bought tix on the flight. Not everyone who has purchased a ticket for the flight is able to pre-select a seat.

Good point. But isn't this the same thing that happens on Delta's and American's website?

We will never know true seat availability for sure until we have an employee access program that allows us to see the loads directly in the Reservations system in real time, list ourselves on the spot, and then see where our listing falls in the que seniority-wise to the other non-revs already listed.