AirTran Airways

AirTran Airways was a low-cost airline in the United States that operated from 1993 until 2014, when it was merged into Southwest Airlines.

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.

Establishment & early years
AirTran Airways was founded in 1993 as Conquest Sun Airlines and began operations as a start up Boeing 737-200 operator with service to and from Orlando.

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 spun 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.

The process
On July 10, 1997, ValuJet, Inc., the parent company of the struggling ValuJet Airlines, entered into an agreement to acquire AirTran Airways and its parent Airways Corporation. After the crashes of ValuJet Flight 597 and ValuJet Flight 592, ValuJet suffered due to the perception of a lax safety culture, putting its business in jeopardy.

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.

Criticism
Even though AirTran Airways was the surviving airline with its absorption of the former ValuJet Airlines which ended its operations as AirTran Airlines, ValuJet Airlines was the nominal corporate survivor of the merger. ValuJet's management team ran the merged airline, and all SEC filings prior to 1997 were under ValuJet, not AirTran. Adding to the confusion, AirTran management did not put an effort into explaining the correct history of AirTran thoroughly.

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. 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.

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.

Turnaround
In January 1999, a new management team led by Joe Leonard, a veteran of Eastern Air Lines, and Robert L. Fornaro, of US Airways, took the reins at the airline. The two recruited a new senior management team, including Stephen J. Kolski, Operations, Kevin P. Healy, Planning, and Loral Blinde, Human Resources. The immediate goals were to stabilize the balance sheet and prepare to refinance debt due in early 2000, fix the operations, increase and establish revenue streams and prepare for delivery and operation of the Boeing 717. AirTran was the launch customer and ultimately the largest operator of this brand new aircraft. At the same time, Leonard was determined to not only lead the turn around of the carrier, but establish a culture of trust and entrepreneurship at AirTran.

2000s


In 1999, AirTran reported a $30 million operating profit.

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.

Failed acquisitions
In 2004, AirTran sought a major expansion at Chicago-Midway Airport by buying the leases of ATA Airlines' 14 gates. Southwest Airlines made a higher bid for the gates, and AirTran lost the deal.

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).

2010s
On April 6, 2010, AirTran Airways opened their second crew base, at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, the same day they officially announced Milwaukee as their second hub.

On July 27, 2010, AirTran Airways hosted the grand opening of their new System Operations Control (SOC) Center at Orlando International Airport. This 16000 sqft, $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."

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 has over 700 daily flights and 8,500 crew members, serving nearly 25 million passengers per year.

Buyout and wind-down
On September 27, 2010, Southwest Airlines announced they would acquire AirTran Airways and parent AirTran Holdings for a total cost of $1.4 billion. The acquisition gave Southwest a significant presence at many of AirTran's hubs, such as Atlanta (then the largest U.S. city without Southwest service) and Milwaukee as well as expanded service in Baltimore and Orlando. With the acquisition, Southwest added international service to several leisure destinations such as Cancún, Montego Bay, and Aruba. Southwest integrated AirTran's fleet of Boeing 737-700 series aircraft into Southwest Airlines brand and livery, and the Boeing 717 fleet was then leased out to Delta Air Lines starting in mid-2013. The airlines planned to have the acquisition completed and finalized within two years, with the two carriers operating as separate airlines in the interim. The deal closed on May 2, 2011, and a single operating certificate for the combined carrier was achieved on March 1, 2012. Total integration of all employee groups between the two carriers was completed in 2015.

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.

Corporate affairs
Prior to its acquisition, AirTran's corporate headquarters were located in Orlando, Florida. Prior to 1994, the headquarters were in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Employee relations
AirTran adopted an approach to employee recruitment similar to Southwest Airlines, with an emphasis on functional skills and relational competence. The airline had clear job specialization with the expectation of flexibility between jobs as required by day-to-day operational circumstances. AirTran's training approach involved drawing the link between individual job performance, the airline's overall financial performance and the importance of achieving high levels of customer service and efficiency.

Destinations
When the acquisition by Southwest was announced, AirTran served 69 destinations throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and abroad.

Codeshare agreements
AirTran did not participate in any major global airline alliances, but it had a codeshare agreement with Frontier in 2008, followed by its parent airline, Southwest Airlines.

Fleet


Prior to being acquired by Southwest, the AirTran fleet maxed at the following aircraft:

In addition, AirTran's 717 fleet included the first and last 717 ever built.

Retired or transferred

 * Airbus A320-200 (operated by Ryan International Airlines for new U.S. west coast service prior to new 737-700 deliveries)
 * Boeing 737-200
 * Bombardier CRJ-200 (AirTran JetConnect service operated by Air Wisconsin and SkyWest via respective code share agreements)
 * McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 (former ValuJet Airlines aircraft)

Cabin
AirTran Airways operated a two-class configuration featuring Business Class and Economy Class. Business class included rows 1–3 and economy began with row 10; rows 4–9 were skipped for numbering purposes and 13 was skipped due to superstition.

Livery
AirTran's livery was primarily white, with teal on the ventral side. The sections were divided by parallel red and pink stripes, which ran horizontal at the front and started to curve upward at the wings until they reached the top side of the plane at the back of the vertical stabilizer. The nacelles were royal blue, with "airtran.com" written in white Helvetica font. The logo version of "AirTran" was written toward the front on either side in teal above the passenger windows and the vertical stabilizer was teal with a prominent white cursive "A," just like the beginning of the logo.

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 liveries. 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.