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AirTran Airways was a low-cost airline in the United States that operated from 1993 until it was acquired by Southwest Airlines May 2, 2011.
Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, AirTran Airways was established in 1993 as Conquest Sun Airlines by the management of two small airlines, Destination Sun Airways and Conquest Airlines, with Conquest Airlines co-founder Victor Rivas being heavily involved in the establishment of Conquest Sun. The airline was purchased by the AirTran Corporation in 1994 and was renamed to AirTran Airways. The airline was later spun off under the new Airways Corporation holding company by the AirTran Corporation.
The airline and the Airways Corporation holding company was purchased in 1997 by the ValuJet holding company, which owned the struggling ValuJet Airlines. The ValuJet holding company became known as AirTran Holdings and merged ValuJet Airlines into AirTran Airways. ValuJet Airlines was renamed "AirTran Airlines" before it was merged into AirTran Airways.
AirTran Airways and parent AirTran Holdings were acquired by Southwest Airlines on May 2, 2011 and gradually integrated, with AirTran's final revenue flight operating on December 28, 2014.
AirTran operated nearly 700 daily flights, primarily in the eastern and midwestern United States, with its principal hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where it operated nearly 200 daily departures. AirTran's fleet consisted of Boeing 717-200 aircraft, of which it was the world's largest operator, and Boeing 737-700 aircraft.
AirTran Airways was established by both the management of Destination Sun Airways and the management of regional airline Conquest Airlines. The establishment of Destination Sun Airways is unclear. It is claimed that Destination Sun was established in 1991 by former Northeastern International Airways CEO Guy Lindley and that the airline was formerly known as SunExpress and based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Another source claimed that Destination Sun was established in 1990 by a bunch of pilots that are presumably ex-Eastern Air Lines pilots since it was claimed later on by the AirTran management that the establishment of AirTran involved former Eastern Air Lines employees. Meanwhile, Conquest Airlines was founded by Rafael Rivas and Victor Rivas in April 1988 in Texas. Victor Rivas, co-founder of Conquest Airlines, was also heavily involved in the establishment of Conquest Sun Airlines.
In 1994, the airline was purchased by the AirTran Corporation, which was the holding company of the Minneapolis-based Mesaba Airlines, an operating carrier for Northwest Airlines's Northwest Airlink that had hubs in Minneapolis and Detroit. After the purchase, the airline was renamed from Conquest Sun Airlines to AirTran Airways to reflect the name of the holding company. The airline moved its headquarters to Orlando and grew to 11 Boeing 737 aircraft, serving 24 cities in the Eastern and Midwestern United States, providing low-fare leisure travel to Orlando.
In 1995, AirTran Corporation created a new subsidiary called Airways Corporation and placed AirTran Airways under the new subsidiary; AirTran Corporation then spun off the new Airways Corporation as an independent holding company which includes AirTran Airways. After the spin off, AirTran Corporation was renamed to Mesaba Holdings after its subsidiary Mesaba Airlines to distance itself from AirTran Airways. AirTran Corporation/Mesaba Holdings was finally renamed to MAIR Holdings, which was finally dissolved in July 2012.
ValuJet purchased Airways Corporation on November 17, 1997. On that date, AirTran Airways and its parent Airways Corporation became subsidiaries of ValuJet. The ValuJet holding company changed its name to AirTran Holdings, Inc. and renamed ValuJet Airlines to AirTran Airlines. AirTran Holdings then operated two airlines with the AirTran name: AirTran Airways and AirTran Airlines (formerly ValuJet Airlines). AirTran Holdings retained ValuJet's stock price history. The AirTran name was chosen by the merged airline's management in hopes of distancing itself from the troubled ValuJet past. AirTran Holdings moved its headquarters to the AirTran Airways headquarters in Orlando on January 28, 1998, while ValuJet's Atlanta hub remained the hub for the combined AirTran Airways/Airlines operation.
In April 1998, AirTran Holdings transferred all of AirTran Airlines' fleet and operations to AirTran Airways and canceled AirTran Airlines' FAA certificate. AirTran Airways now became the only airline operator for AirTran Holdings and AirTran Airlines became an inactive subsidiary of AirTran Holdings. In August 1999, AirTran Airlines was merged into AirTran Airways, legally ending the ValuJet legacy.
The AirTran airline operation received criticism for the name change with Time magazine writing, "In a corporate disappearing act, the troubled airline bought a smaller rival and adopted its name, becoming AirTran Airways." The Los Angeles Times wrote in the Summer of 1997, "After more than a year of reminding too many people of a disaster rather than low fares, ValuJet on Thursday said it would take a new name. ValuJet is buying a much smaller airline, AirTran Airways, from Airways Corp. for $66.3 million worth of stock and taking its name."
In an article in The Atlantic entitled "The Lessons of ValuJet 592," William Langewiesche presents a case in which the May 11, 1996 crash in the Florida Everglades as an example of a system accident, in which the complexity of the overall operation was the major contributing factor.Langewiesche, William (March 1998). The Lessons of Valujet 592, The Atlantic. Langewiesche writes, 'Conventional accidents — those I call procedural or engineered — will submit to our solutions, but as air travel continues to expand, we can expect capricious system accidents to blossom. Understanding why might keep us from making the system even more complex, and therefore perhaps more dangerous, too.' Taking a contrary position, Brian Stimpson argues in the Manitoba Professional Engineer that there are other examples of studied complex operations which have been routinely performed safely for many years, with such examples including large aircraft carriers and the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station in California.Stimpson, Brian (Oct. 1998). Operating Highly Complex and Hazardous Technological Systems Without Mistakes: The Wrong Lessons from ValuJet 592, Manitoba Professional Engineer. Stimpson argues that complex systems can be operated safely. Regarding Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, he writes, ' . . However, when the aircraft carrier Nimitz-class goes into "active" mode and planes are landing and being launched, there is a vital change. Co-operation and communication largely override hierarchical position. There is no time for instructions to move up and down a chain of command. Team play, constant communication (telephone, radio, hand signals, writing), watching colleagues' actions, and the oversight of more experienced personnel who monitor activities, mean that mistakes are rare and can often be corrected before harm is done. . '
AirTran made almost no mention of its ValuJet past. However, on the tenth anniversary of the Flight 592 crash, AirTran made no major corporate announcements out of respect for the victims' families.Huettel, Steve. 10 years after tragedy, AirTran flies on . St. Petersburg Times, 2006-05-11.
On August 15, 2001, the company's stock began trading under the ticker symbol AAI on the New York Stock Exchange.
In 2002, AirTran created a regional brand, AirTran JetConnect, operated by Air Wisconsin.
In 2003, following an order for 100 Boeing 737-700 aircraft, AirTran began service to Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National Airport and to San Francisco.
On January 5, 2004, AirTran's last McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 was retired, leaving it with a fleet of more than 70 Boeing 717-200s. Shortly after, the first Boeing 737-700 entered AirTran's fleet in June 2004.
In August 2004, AirTran JetConnect (operated by Air Wisconsin) ceased all operations.
On May 23, 2006, AirTran accepted one of the last two Boeing 717s delivered in a ceremony with Midwest Airlines, who accepted the other 717. Boeing closed the 717 line due to poor sales.
In November 2007, Robert L. Fornaro took over as CEO, as well as president. Joe Leonard remained chairman of the Board of Directors until June 2008. Upon his retirement, Fornaro then became chairman making him chairman, president and CEO.
In 2009, AirTran was the first major airline to have 100% of its fleet outfitted with Gogo Inflight Internet, although other airlines had begun adding Internet before AirTran.
By 2009, AirTran underwent major expansion in smaller cities such as Yeager Airport (Charleston, W.V.); Asheville Regional Airport, N.C.; and Harrisburg International Airport, Pa.
In December 2006, Air Tran Holdings announced that it had been trying to acquire Midwest Air Group. On August 12, 2007, AirTran announced its attempt to purchase Midwest Airlines had expired, while TPG Capital, in partnership with Northwest Airlines, had entered into an agreement to purchase Midwest Airlines for an amount larger than the AirTran Airways' proposal. However, on August 14, 2007, AirTran increased its offer to the equivalent of $16.25 a share, slightly more than the $16 a share from TPG Capital investors group. However, Midwest announced TPG would increase its offer to $17 per share and a definitive agreement had been reached late on August 16, 2007.
On September 21, 2007, AirTran pilots, represented by the National Pilots Association, rejected the carrier's contract proposal. Two weeks earlier, the pilots voted to dump the union president and vice president. On April 10, 2009, 87% of the pilots at AirTran voted to merge the National Pilots Association with the world's largest pilot union, Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).
On July 27, 2010, AirTran Airways hosted the grand opening of their new System Operations Control (SOC) Center at Orlando International Airport. This , $6.9 million, state-of-the-art command center served as the 24-hour nerve center for the entire airline with over 700 flights per day. The company employed more than 1,000 crew members in central Florida at several facilities, including their corporate headquarters, the SOC, and a maintenance facility in addition to passengers operations at the airport. After considering putting the SOC Center in Atlanta, where AirTran has their largest hub, the decision was made to expand the facility in Orlando adjacent to AirTran's headquarters.
In October 2010, a new crew base opened at Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida. The base initially employed 100 pilots, including a chief pilot.
In April 2011, AirTran had the best safety record among U.S. carriers as measured by the number of incidents such as bird strikes. AirTran was first with only 0.0000196 incidents per flight, Southwest second with 0.0000203, and US Airways third with 0.0000203 incidents per flight. Bill Voss, who was then head of the Flight Safety Foundation, said "the safety record in the U.S. is so good that it's very difficult to find enough accidents or incidents to draw much of a conclusion about who's safest." 7 Safest U.S. Airlines, But Who's Counting?, ABC News, Alan Farnham, April 11, 2011.
Prior to the winding down of the airline, AirTran grew to serve more than 70 cities coast-to-coast as well as in the Caribbean and Mexico. It had over 700 daily flights and 8,500 crew members, and served nearly 25 million passengers per year.
On February 14, 2013, Southwest Airlines announced that they had begun codesharing with AirTran. They took the first step on January 25, 2013 by launching shared itineraries in five markets. Southwest continued launching shared itineraries with 39 more markets beginning February 25, 2013. By April 2013, shared itineraries were scheduled to be available in all Southwest and AirTran cities (both domestic and international).
Southwest announced that the integration would be completed on December 28, 2014, with AirTran Airways Flight 1 as the final scheduled departure for the airline, flying with a Boeing 717-200 (N717JL) from Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to Tampa International Airport (TPA). The flight used the callsign "Critter" as a nod to ValuJet. This route and flight number had been ValuJet's first flight.
| + AirTran Airways Last fleet ! rowspan="2" style="width:120px;" | Aircraft ! rowspan="2" | In service ! colspan="3" | Passengers ! rowspan="2" | Notes | |
| Boeing 717-200 | 88 | 12 | 105 | 117 | Launch customer. Southwest leased all aircraft to Delta Air Lines. |
| Boeing 737-700 | 52 | 12 | 125 | 137 | All were transferred to Southwest Airlines. |
In addition, AirTran's 717 fleet included the first and last 717 ever built.
AirTran Airways also created several special livery aircraft. They included an aircraft featuring Elton John and Danica Patrick. AirTran also partnered with the Orlando/Orange County CVB to create a Boeing 717 aircraft emblazoned with a "Say YES to Orlando" logo on each side and a second Boeing 717 saying "Orlando Makes Me Smile," which celebrated AirTran Airways' partnership with the OOCVB to promote travel to the city. The airline also had an aircraft paying tribute to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando.
Several aircraft featured sports-related livery. The teams represented were the Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts, Orlando Magic, and Milwaukee Brewers.
On February 12, 2010, AirTran Airways celebrated Little Debbie's 50th anniversary by launching a one-of-a-kind, custom-designed Boeing 717, dubbed Little Debbie 1.
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