There has been a notable history of fatalities in the airlines. However, it is a rare sight to have a lot of them in any one range of airlines. Yes, airtran airways is one such airline which has had more than the lion’s share of accidents. Where some accidents may be called spoofs, these were clearly over the red line.
Although air tran airlines had begun as a low cost airline, the fluctuation in the fuel rates had an impact on its air fare as well, in spite of the fact that it was initially being publicized as the airline with the lowest airfare. However, all was well as long as the flight safely carried passengers from one destination to the other. This airline is a subsidiary of the airtran airlines holdings. With almost 800 flights a day, the airline was clearly making a profit in business. The name airtran was adopted in the late nineties and have led to numerous confusions over ata and air tran airways.
Unfortunately, since its beginning, airtran airways has been facing issues filed from one body or the other. The first objection came from the northwest airlines though. They had a problem with the speedy expansion of the air tran airlines into jet carriers. Air tran had to comply in order to continue work in peace. In a short time, to combat, airtran airlines announced a collaboration with the ValuJet Airlines. This was however shortly followed by the ValuJet Flight 592 fiasco. Although air tran airlines itself did not cause any fatality and was not responsible for the incident, the notorious accident has always been related to the airtran airlines.
The media had a great party bashing around the picture along with the name of airtrans airlines. This was all fine, until an actual accident happened with one of the airtran airlines. Hell broke loose as media gathered around airtran airways 867 that had lost control and as a result of which the nose gear broke as the flight skidded off its runway. Although the cause was more of a faulty repair than the mechanics, the tabloid wrote what ever they fancied, including many pinches on the increasing airfare of the airlines.
Nine eleven too had an impact on the sales but gave an opportunity to the air tran airways to cover up the lost ground. The decrease in flights gave ample recuperating time to airtran.
In the year 2000, there were 2 reported back to back incidents, with the first one with the flight 913 that had a fire in the cockpit and had to land in emergency, saving all lives eventually. The second incident was due to the breakout of an electric fire in the flight 956. This too ended in a landing in emergency. Although no life was lost in both the incidents, the incidents defamed airtran airways like nothing. Since all were asked to remain alert, an electric smell 2 years later made the crew go into the emergency landing mode once again. However, this time the cause was just an alarm.
Before the crew and staff of airtran airways could breathe, there came the inevitable- total electric failure of airways 852. Thankfully, no fatality occurred but due to the media close by, the damage done was irreparable.
Even though today air tran airways has more than 57 destinations in the US and is to date the most frequently booked flight, media still loves recalling the ValuJet story time and again. With time, the front office of airtran has learned well to dodge unnecessary queries turned towards the depressing incident. Airtran has believed in going forward always, and its this approach has been responsible in saving it.
