In the airport tonight for a flight out west and things are a little different than normal. You could say a little spooky. Not because it is Halloween, but because I found myself in Alex’s territory, on an AirTran flight.

I travel a little more than I care to admit, and as a result miss writing a few a lot of trip reports. But this is likely the last flight I’ll take on AirTran’s 717-200 as an AirTran operated flight, so I thought I’d pass along the experience.

I’m not flying Delta because the schedule didn’t work out. So instead, I’m flying AirTran for the first time in a few years. It has been so long I had to look up my A+ account number on AwardWallet. Once I found my number, signed up for the double points promotion and booked my flight, I was off to the airport to catch my flight.

Check-in was very easy. There was no line and the automated kiosk was quick to print my boarding pass.

During the seat selection process I noticed there were 5 big seats up front still available only 1 hour before departure, so I snagged one for $99. The price was high, but for a late 3+ hour flight, I decided to take the bait and sit up front.

I found myself heading towards the C gates in the Atlanta airport. The last time I was in this section of the airport was to visit Montreal on a Delta regional jet. To the left, I found the Delta SkyClub. To the right was virtually another universe, for me at least.

Since it is Halloween, every gate is decked out with Halloween decorations and most agents wore some type of costume. There was even the occasional passenger with a costume.

Boarding was called and I headed in to check out my seat for the next few hours.

The seats for this Boeing 717 were very comfortable.

On board, the flight attendants were wearing cat uniforms, with actual tails. A pre-departure drink was offered and I went with a Scotch, Dewars, on the rocks. It was that or Jack Daniels. I’ll just say it wasn’t as smooth as the usual, a Woodford on the rocks from Delta.

Bottom Line

AirTran will be going away once the integration with Southwest is completed. They’ll likely merge with Southwest’s program at some point in the near future. Until they complete the integration, make sure you credit any AirTran flights to an A+ account

The best part of the flight was the schedule. It was so late I was still able to make it to Baby Weekly Flyer’s first Halloween party.

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