AirTran Airways

But they used to have some great flights out of there.

But I used to fly AirTran, and they flew out of there.

They had great discounted flights.

But to get to Newport News, you had to leave hours before your flight because not only did you have to worry about security, but who knew what was going to happen at the tunnel.

And despite the bankruptcy restructurings and mergers and takeovers the airline industry regularly goes through, it's rare for a major airline to simply shut down.

TWA was absorbed by American, and AirTran was acquired by Southwest.

The last time an airline of Spirit's size was completely dissolved was Pan Am, 35 years ago.

A lot has changed since then, in airline operations and the world at large.

Every airline sooner or later will probably do it, but it's not something that happens every day.

And Southwest's was particularly drawn out because it coincided with the merger with AirTran, which was finished just before I arrived.

You were there through more of that.

But that concluded just before I was hired.

And then, of course, since then, I've not been working on the IT side as I went from Navitare to Southwest to go work in-house.

But you're correct.

at one point we were working amongst three different systems we were working on now one of them yeah that's the one that was gone by the time i arrived i just yeah exactly right the project was called coda and essentially airtran brought several things to southwest number one it brought international markets and number two it bought the ability to charge for luggage So even though Southwest didn't start charging for bags until 2025, the system ability, the capability to do so was brought on by the AirTran technology that it was bringing to the table.

Southwest

But last night it was a different story.

10-year-old Carly was distraught when AirTran officials in Atlanta turned their plane around to kick her tiny turtle, Bug, off the flight.

It was greener than all the other ones in the tank, and it was the fastest swimmer.

Um, it was like this big.

It gets more bizarre.

Yeah.

Harmless maybe, but against AirTran policy to be on board.

So the girls had a difficult decision to make.

Developers projected half a million passengers in the first year, a million and a half by 2014.

Air Tran and Sun Country were standing by.

The future had arrived.

In 2024, the Branson Airport handled a total of 5,626 passengers.