AirTran Airways

My wife and I were subject the THE very worst treatment and customer service over the weekend whilst returning from our vacation.

All at the hands of the ignorant, clueless and untrained staff at AirTran Airways at BWI airport.

We were booked on the 10:25am flight back home. We arrived at the airport at 8:00am, in plenty of time to clear check-in and security before relaxing at the departure gate before our plane left.

Or so we thought.

Several lines snaked back from the AirTran check-in desks, the result of mismanagement earlier in the morning, which was now compounded to such a degree that a wait in excess of 1½ hours was necessary.

Meaning that we, along with several hundred OTHER passengers, could not be confirmed for flights before they were closed.

So, several hundred unhappy passengers all having their shit gripped through no fault of their own.

The gate clerk told us we could be booked on the later 3:52pm flight, which we accepted.

Only to find out much later - almost by accident - that the fucking bitch had marked us as standby-ONLY passengers, despite the check-in snafu being of their making! Indeed, we were marked as "no show" passengers, meaning we had zero preference entitlement.

The 3:52pm flight ended up being "oversold" - gee, I wonder why AirTran? - meaning we had no chance to get on it, and we then heard the even later 9:00pm flight was also oversold.

To add insult to injury the AirTran staff couldn't give a flying fuck for our - or other people's - dilemmas. Not one staff member ever apologised for the situation their incompetence had created - almost as if they had been trained to never admit fault? - and repeated requests to see a supervisor fell on deaf ears.

In fact, we discovered, the supervisor had REFUSED to come down to speak with any disgruntled passenger, and furthermore had ordered the gate staff NOT to give her name to any passenger who asked for it. Again, you have to wonder if this is company policy or a senior member shirking her responsibilities.

It became more and more evident no-one was going to help us - requests for refunds or to be booked on alternate airlines were met with absolute refusals - so we felt forced to hire a car from Hertz and drive ourselves the 500 miles home.

AirTran will never get another cent from me, and we are in the process of (as they say) ripping them a new one. Through the courts if necessary. I will do my utmost to find a way of making AirTran EAT the shit I gripped on Saturday.