<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jwhite4:
An obvious factor is that Georgia employees' travel destinations aren't that extensive. The 40 destinations that AirTrans provides service to can cover most/all of the 18 destinations they need to fly to. Delta's advantage is in the more extensive service area, which doesn't appear to be a big advantage here.</font>
I think you missed the point actually ... actually, the topic of this thread is partly to blame. Air Tran has not become
the "Official Carrier" for the state, but
an "Official Carrier", but actually it's Preferred Carrier.
The way these contracts work is that the states bid out each city pair individually. I'm sure AirTran bid on every city pair it could, but likely Georgia was not seeking bids on all of the destinations Air Tran serves (Grand Bahamas for one they probably did not bid). So, Air Tran won 19 ... how many they bid on ... somewhere between 19 and 40, but I think it's safe to assume ATL-CHI was put out for bid and Air Tran bid on it and did not get it ... as an example.
So, in effect the "Preferred Carrier" status is a route-by-route thing, not a systemwide thing.