viajero From Mexico, joined Aug 2008, 119 posts, RR: 0 Posted (6 months 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 2275 times:
Please forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere. I did a cursory search and found nothing. Several questions:
1) According to the Flight Track Pro app on my iPhone, all of the Southwest -800 flights are being listed concurrently with the old ATA Airlines code (TZ). Is this a glitch in the system or something else? Is WN using the old certificate of TZ to operate these aircraft? (I know WN had a stake in the company, but don't know if they ended up with the cert somehow)
2) Southwest and AirTran merged into a Single AOC in March if I recall correctly. Having done so, how can FL still operate "FL" flights if they're no longer on their own cert?
3) Has any annoucement been made as to when the full integration of FL into WN will take place?
SKC From United States of America, joined Oct 2012, 61 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (6 months 5 days ago) and read 2117 times:
1. It would have to be a glitch as TZ doesn't exist anymore, so SWA couldn't use the code, nor would there be any reason to. All of the SWA aircraft are operated under the SWA ops specs.
2. SOC occurred May 1st, if I recall correctly. FL continues to operate their flights via a partition on the SWA ops specs. Both FL and WN are on the same operating certificate, yet there is a partition that allows both to continue to operate separately until all ops can be combined. FL aircraft and crew will continue to slowly transition to WN over the next few years.
3. Contractually, I believe all FL crew and aircraft are supposed to be on the WN side by Jan 1, 2015, but not sure if that will happen.
rfields5421 From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 6150 posts, RR: 25 Reply 2, posted (6 months 5 days ago) and read 2089 times:
Quoting viajero (Thread starter): 2) Southwest and AirTran merged into a Single AOC in March if I recall correctly. Having done so, how can FL still operate "FL" flights if they're no longer on their own cert?
The FL designation is IATA and has nothing to do with the AOC. WN owns the FL code and if they wish to use it for financial reasons to identify certain routes and costs - that is their business choice.
The AirTran paint scheme and name are marketing tools. Remember Song operated by Delta? They didn't have a separate AOC.
Another US example would be Skywest OO - they have one AOC, yet how many flights do they operate under flight numbers set by various major carriers, how many different paint schemes, etc?
SKC From United States of America, joined Oct 2012, 61 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (6 months 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 2061 times:
Quoting rfields5421 (Reply 2): The AirTran paint scheme and name are marketing tools. Remember Song operated by Delta? They didn't have a separate AOC.
Another US example would be Skywest OO - they have one AOC, yet how many flights do they operate under flight numbers set by various major carriers, how many different paint schemes, etc?
Song wasn't a separate carrier that Delta acquired. Just like United Shuttle/Ted wasn't a separate carrier prior to United, Song was created by Delta to be a low-cost arm of DL. This is nothing like FL/WN. Air Tran was a separate carrier that had their own op cert. We still have two separate ops centers. The current WN cert has a partition that require aircraft and crew to remain on their various sides until required to transition to WN. Aircraft can't just cross the partition at will.
If DL had wanted to use a Song aircraft to cover a broken mainline DL flight, I'm guessing there wouldn't be any operational certificate issues prohibiting them from doing so. WN and FL couldn't do that.
Skywest isn't a good example either. Skywest has marketing agreements with all those different airlines. Has nothing to do with operating certificates.
Mexicana757 From United States of America, joined Apr 2001, 2958 posts, RR: 30 Reply 6, posted (6 months 4 days 17 hours ago) and read 1631 times:
Quoting viajero (Thread starter): 1) According to the Flight Track Pro app on my iPhone, all of the Southwest -800 flights are being listed concurrently with the old ATA Airlines code (TZ). Is this a glitch in the system or something else? Is WN using the old certificate of TZ to operate these aircraft? (I know WN had a stake in the company, but don't know if they ended up with the cert somehow
It's a software glitch. The reason you are seeing the ATA code is becuase WN has started to number their flights in the 4000s. When WN and TZ started codesharing this was the number range used by ATA on their flights.
I believe he was trying to provide another example of something like the Southwest-AirTran situation.. But I think the only airline that wouldn't be able to just interchange with the rest of the carriers would be F9, and I'm not even sure if they're on the same certificate or not..
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