ATA is an awful airline

I have been doing a lot of traveling for work, as the name of this blog might suggest, and the more I travel the more I realize that it is totally worth it to fly a reputable airline. This means somewhere where they understand the concept of customer service, the elite status is worth something, and it is actually possible to redeem your points. I used to fly ATA because I thought they were cheap and convenient, but that is really not the case. The flight crew is unkind and not helpful, and the staff at the check-in desk is frequently absent at important times, such as when you are trying to check in for your flight. If you do any regular (or long distance) flying it is totally worth it to develop a relationship with a real airline. I have been flying with Continental instead of ATA and am much happier: elite status actually means something, you can actually redeem your points fairly painlessly and the flight crew is professional.

The clincher is that as Todd tried to board his flight today and arrived at the airport 35 minutes before departure. After waiting in line for 5 minutes at the check-in desk for an attendant to appear she told him (and the three other people behind him trying to check in for the same flight) that "the flight closes 30 minutes before departure". He patiently explained that he and the others in line with him had been waiting in line for 5 minutes and were all on time for check-in, but that she had been absent. Her response: "I'm sorry, there's absolutely nothing I can do." After demanding to speak to her manager his response was to say, "the flight is closed," and simply turn his back and walk away. And to top it all off they were able to re-schedule the other three people for a later flight, but told Todd that "we have no more seats available in the Member rewards class for any other flights today" (there were 3 more to Midway).

Luckily ATA is partners with Southwest and the Southwest service desk kindly found him a flight leaving from Islip to L.A., and he arrived only 2 and a half hours later than originally planned. If you want to set Todd off in a tizzy ask him about his experiences with the kind folks at ATA. Just don't do it around anything breakable.

Needless to say I won't be using ATA ever again, not even for a reward flight. It was totally not worth the hassle and aggravation.