Upgrading to Business After November 1
 

The Airtran website won't book anything after November 1, but AirTran aircraft will keep flying until December 28th.

So what is the plan for business class upgrades? Will Southwest.com be able to upsell you to business class on airtran flights at an extra charge, upon check-in or not at all?

Or will we keep using the Airtran website to check-in on airtran operated flights?

That is a good question. I don't think there is an official answer.

Currently if you buy a ticket on Airtran from Southwest.com you check in there. I assume that is what will happen and the Airtran site will shutdown completely.

Currently Southwest will sell you a Business Select upgrade at check-in for the full price. They will sell you a boarding upgrade at the gate for $40. They do not offer reduced price upgrades at check-in like Airtran does.

I wonder if they will try to offer complimentary upgrades to Elites and A-list passengers, like Airtran does now and Southwest does sometimes.

I noticed that a significant number of AirTran flights after November 1st show "sold out" for the business select fare on Southwest.com. Somehow, I doubt they are actually sold out. Maybe a system glitch or maybe they're planning on giving away business for a couple months... Who knows.

Perhaps it's just the routes you look at. I'm not seeing that on my routes.

Could be... Look at ATL-LAS from 11/30-12/10. Every flight including an AirTran segment shows sold out for business select except for 12/05, where every flight with AirTran shows business select available. I highly doubt they've sold out business select for every other AirTran flight during that time period by now.

That's weird. I just checked ATL-LAX, and am not seeing the same thing although some Airtran flights are sold out in Business. My normal routes don't show the flights being sold out.

Perhaps people willing to pay BS rates are selecting the Airtran flights because they get all of the things they get on Southwest plus a bigger chair and more than one drink.

OK I did some more checking. On 11/30 for those LAS flights that include a change of planes all of the flights are offering Business Select fares on the Airtran segments to BWI, MDW, STL and HOU.

I think it must be some kind of glitch.

With the exception of the NFR, the first two weeks of December are historically the slowest of the entire year in LAS. Every Year. Many/most of the production shows are dark for vacations and prep-work for the freak show that is NYE.

I'm inclined to agree with rsteinmetz70112 that you've likely stumbled onto a Southwest IT glitch :rolleyes:

But FL's Business Class seats are so old and not in the best shape these days anyway...

They're still better than sitting in the back.

True, but aren't the 737s going to get refitted with WN's more comfy and spacious leather seats? I thought they were while the 717s will just be sold to DL.

^^^

Air Tran's B737-700s are 12+125 for 137 total

Southwest's B737-700s (and a chunk of their -300s) are 143 single class with Devolve seating

I've never ridded in the back of the bus on AirTran, but the Business Class seating in the front is great (worn or not).

I cannot imagine that the Southwest Devolve configuration is either "more comfy" OR "spacious" relative to existing AirTran seating.

Unless you're 5 feet tall and weigh 100 pounds.

They will get refitted with Southwest's evolve seating, which I don't find either more spacious or comfy, but they will be new.

Some already have been moved to Southwest. I understand there will still be 12-18 left when Airtran stops flying in December. I have been told these will continue to fly in Airtran colors until they can be completely changed over.

I wonder if they will change the seats before then since that can be accomplished in a few hours. They should have plenty of spare seats from the planes already changed over.

I flew on AirTran after a while this year. Got the free upgrade easily. The BC seats are indeed neglected as they are going away anyway.Having said that, I would rather sit in those seats than my seat of choice in a Southwest flight.

I did notice they have chocolate chip cookies. Problem these were some diet chips ahoy wafer thin cookies where the chocolate chips seemed to be painted on with the same technology used to create circuits in microchips. I had to drink a couple of juices just to wash off the taste of those horrible cookies.

Still, it is nice to get the upgrades while FL still lasts on the very few routes they still service. The fares are ridiculous. Plane wasn't full on an offpeak 9pm flight on Tuesday and yet the fare booked a few weeks ago during a "Sale" period was 170 plus. Making it tough for me to make more spontaneous leisure trips to requalify for Elite so I can get WN to give me A LIst in 2015.