AirTran Airways

AV8TOR

New Member
So I went online and looked for a plane ticket to dallas at the end of this month, now i don't make a lot of money, so i picked the cheapest ticket that I could find. And low and behold it was AirTran, and I am by far no expert at all at who is who in the airline industry but I do know the major airlines. The first page of flights were AirTran and they were pretty cheap compared to the other airlines.

So I bought the tickets, then I did a search on Goolge and found this website http://www.ityt.com/airtran/ ...it seems they bought out ValuJet, and by reading this I got completely scared and I love to fly. Should I start making my Last Will and Testiment now.....????
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AirTran Airways - The Truth about Safety

This site is a public warning and disclaimer to potential customers of AirTran Airways (a.k.a. ValuJet). AirTran has a history of negligence and unsafe practices that make it the most unsafe airline in the United States. This site is designed to inform the public about the hidden danger with substantial proof, factual information, and alternatives to flying AirTran.

It is a national scandal that the AirTran/ValuJet "merger" allows ValuJet to be operated under a name that consumers do not recognize as unsafe. The reality is that AirTran Airways constantly has fires, engine failures, electrical failures, and other serious and major safety hazards. However, due to an ongoing miracle and pure luck, no lives have been lost since the horrifying and tragic crash of ValuJet 592 outside MIA.

AirTran is a low-cost, no-frills airline that has a corporate culture of being unsafe due to careless maintenance and a new fleet that is almost exclusively comprised by the 717, the orphan version of the DC-9/MD-80 from Boeing. In one case, a maintenance contractor was criminally charged and found liable for a crash that killed all passengers on board (Valujet 592) and AirTran enjoys exclusively blaming them for the incident and accepting no responsibility for their lack of oversight of the maintenance process.

"Doesn't the new AirTran management takes safety seriously?"

No, this is not true.

It is often unknown that AirTran had three separate aircraft fires in the year 2000 alone; two were on DC-9s and one was on a 717. It's notable that it was a similar fire on ValuJet 592 that sent 110 people to their graves. Also in 2000, AirTran had a total electrical failure in a 717. In March of 2003, an Airtran 717 had multiple electrical failures that resulted in an emergency landing at Laguardia Airport in New York and ended with 23 passengers injured (one seriously).


"The crash of ValuJet 592 was a tragedy, but it was an accident. Nobody could have known."

In the two years prior to the crash of ValuJet 592, that aircraft had eight major incidents that either required an aborted takeoff or emergency landing. Two of those were on the same day and unrelated to each other.

In the flight preceding 592, the aircraft's cabin announcement system was not working properly and flight attendants used a handheld loudspeaker to make announcements to passengers. On 592, the flight attendants had no communication with the flight deck (cockpit) other than knocking or shouting through the cockpit door. The NTSB says that this is acceptable as long as the cabin crew and pilots have an agreed system of communication as an alternative to using the intercom. The extent of the information that the flight crew had was hearing "fire, fire, fire," being shouted from the cabin.

Although ValuJet caused many factors in the crash and the final straw was unrelated to the mechanical operations of the aircraft, ValuJet was negligent in allowing that aircraft to fly. Additionally, the ValuJet manuals do not have the Douglas DC-9 Flight crew emergency procedure for removing smoke from the cabin during flight. Northwest Airlines, US Airways, and Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 pilot's handbook include this procedure


"So they've had one fatal crash. Big deal. The majors have tons."

On May 10th, 1996, ValuJet had never fatally crashed. Does that make them safe?

To give you a basis for comparison, Delta Air Lines operates over 800 aircraft. AirTran operates less than 70. Try to imagine how many times a year Delta would have to crash to keep up with AirTran's rate. It's very scary.
 
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When was the last time you heard an AirTran plane crash?

Dude, planes have had "incidents" before and they will have them again.

I believe that most if not all of their aircraft are newer B717's.

Don't worry about the flight.
 
That's an old site. Basicly, ValueJet bought the AirTran certificate to get a new name. After the Critter 592 fiasco they felt that a new name would get rid of the bad association that people had with ValueJet... and it did. They are now a completly different airline. ValueJet was flying DC9s at the time of the crash. F9 now has 717s and 737s. I sure there are still pilots on the ValueJet seniority list flying for F9, but the company is much more mainstream the Critter ever was. I've flown on them a whole bunch and have never had a problem. That said, the infrastructure is still mostly the same. In fact, I think it's Terminal B in ATL (which ever the old one is), if you look behind the AirTran logo at a lot of the gates, the old Critter logo is still on the wall behind it. I'm not sure why that website is still there as it came out right when they were changing names.
 
If you believe this BS don't fly them.

But writing stuff like this: AirTran has a history of negligence and unsafe practices that make it the most unsafe airline in the United States. parroting a website is pretty unprofessional, that is if you are, or are trying to be, a professional aviator.
 
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If you believe this BS don't fly them.

But writing stuff like this: AirTran has a history of negligence and unsafe practices that make it the most unsafe airline in the United States. parroting a website is pretty unprofessional, that is if you are, or are trying to be, a professional aviator.

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thanks for the info, I don't know anything bout the airline industry, I am just starting out with my private, But I do know airlines like American, Delta, United, etc....I have never heard of AirTran, that's why I did the research, And believe you me, I didn't write any of that, that's a direct quote from the website, that I found, thus I listed the website where I pulled it from.

Being there are a lot of pilots in here, I'm pretty sure someone has came across these guys at the airport. Just trying to get an inside look at who this airline is. I plan on taking the flight. But the page that I did find was a little startling.

But like JEP and BobDDuck said, it's an old website and JEP is right when's the last time that you heard of an incident or accident occuring.
Thanks for all the info!!!
 
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But the page that I did find was a little startling.

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Well clearly they have a bone to pick. But notice on the website they keep showing the same picture of the DC-9 that burnt on the runway in ATL. Unless you looked carefully it made one incident look like many. It is a rather hysterical website, long on dire pronouncements, short on documentation and mostly ancient history.
 
I'm sure it's about as safe as any other airline, meaning very. Air Tran has a sizeable fleet, 2 or 3 fires and a couple of electrical problems a year is probably about average for any operator with that many airplanes.
 
In May of 1996 ValuJet Airlines had a crash in everglades of Florida. The accident was caused by a private maintenance contractor that had improperly packaged and loaded unused oxygen canisters (used to supply passenger oxygen in case of loss of cabin pressure) into flight 592's cargo hold for the purpose of transporting them back to Valujets hub of Atlanta. As they taxied out these oxygen canisters were activated by the normal bumps and movement of taxing an airplane. Once activated they released oxygen into the cargo hold. Unfortunatley one of the byproducts of this chemical process is heat, somethin like 500 degrees of heat. this combined with the oxygen rich environment caused a fire. Back then Cargo Fire detection and protection systems were not required on older aircraft such as the DC-9s that valujet flew so the crew had no idea there was a fire until they were airborne and smoke started to fill the cabin. After the NTSB investigation the FAA and Sabretech (the maintenance contractor) were shown to be most at fault. Sabretech went out of business because of this accident.

Obviously after the crash the Valujet name was a detriment so in 1997 Valujet bought AirTran Airlines out of Orlando Florida and changed their name to AirTran Airways and changed management. Shortly after this AirTran began replacing their 25-30 year old DC-9s with brand new Boeing 717s. The last DC-9 was retired sometime in 2002 or 2003. today they have over 90 Boeing 717s and 13 Boeing 737-700s with an average age of 3-4 years. So as pointed out before the AirTran Airways of today is a completely differnt airline it was nearly 10 years ago. That website you saw I believe was started many years ago by someone with a serious bone to pick ( maybe a relative of a 592 victim) and for some reason has survived even though there have been two or three management changes and a complete fleet renewal and no other fatal accidents. The website you reference looks as if it hasn't been updated in a long time and some of the links are dead links. So I would say don't worry about it and enjoy the flight eveything will be fine.
 
Well my girlfriend had a very unpleasant flight on one of Airtran's DC-9s back a few years ago, but that was only because she had a crummy seat and it was a turbulent flight. She said that the other legs that she flew with them on the 737s were great. From what I've heard, Airtran is basically comparable to Southwest or Jetblue or any of those other low fare carriers.
 
I just flew AirTran a couple of weeks ago (over the 4th) to texas and had no problems with them at all (other than being delayed by weather in ATL which isn't their fault anyway).

I'd say fly them and don't worry about it. They were just like flying on any other carrier - and they still serve pretzles!!!
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It is often unknown that AirTran had three separate aircraft fires in the year 2000 alone; two were on DC-9s and one was on a 717. It's notable that it was a similar fire on ValuJet 592 that sent 110 people to their graves.


[/ QUOTE ] I find this part of the article very hard to believe. They had 3 separate fires caused by contract maintenance putting improperly secured 02 generators in the cargo hold? Whoever wrote this article sounds very uninformed. I wouldn't worry about flying Airtran.
 
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BTW, did AirTran pick up all of TWA's old 717s? If not, whatever happened to them?

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I believe most went to AirTran although a few went overseas to JetStar in Australia and/or Hawaiian Airlines in Hawaii.
 
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