Carrier Operates Ten Daily Flights

Travelers at White Plains Airport in New York are bemoaning the impending loss of the discount carrier. Orlando-based AirTran currently operates 10 daily flights to and from Westchester County Airport that serve Atlanta, Orlando and West Palm Beach, Florida but those flights will end August 11.

Spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger for Southwest Airlines, the Dallas-based parent of AirTran, said in an email to the Greenwich Times that the economics just don't work. "One of Southwest's top priorities when we acquired AirTran was to build a combined service plan and integrate AirTran into the Southwest network. For some cities this meant growing the current level of service, and for others it meant adjusting the destinations and number of flights, or both. At the same time, there were a few markets that we simply cannot make work, so we've had to make the hard decision to discontinue service in those markets."

"AirTran Airways can no longer support service to these particular markets due to the realities of the challenging economic environment and especially sustained high fuel prices," Eichinger said. "We've had to place a keener focus on aligning our service with customer demand and making capacity available for future opportunities without growing the current fleet."

The Connecticut Post reports that AirTran began service at White Plains in April 2006, and accounts for about 300,000 of the 1.9 million yearly passenger load at the airport. Atlanta-bound travelers will solely be reliant on Delta Air Lines once AirTran leaves Westchester.

FMI: www.airtran.com