A Sad Ending For 3 Airlines

Well, today another airline that I used twice within the last 9 months announced that it was going out of business.

Skybus Airlines, based in Columbus, Ohio, announced that they will be halting service, starting today, April 5, 2008. It's really sad. I flew this airline 3 weeks ago (to Columbus), and I had a really good time visiting my friends in Akron, Ohio.

Skybus was a fun airline to fly. They could get that plane boarded pretty quickly. Once in the air, the flight attendants would come by and offer you food, snacks and drinks to purchase. If you purchased, you could pay cash or credit card! I liked being able to pay for what I wanted, and being able to get quality food. They had a pretty good chicken sandwich on Italian bread, which I liked. When I first flew on this airline, you could even purchase Seagram's Lynchburg Lemonade! Of course, you could also buy M&M's (plain or with peanuts) and other candies. They even had Sara Lee blueberry muffins. Yes, I guess food is one of the highlights of any trip that I take, and although it wasn't spectacular, it will be one of the things that I miss about this airline (and the spirit of it, too- they tried something, and the economy and the world's fuel prices wouldn't allow it to continue.) I was lucky to be able to get the legendary $10 fares on Skybus, on both trips that I took to Columbus (with taxes, it worked out to be $40 round trip). At least I can say that I flew on Skybus.

Then there's Aloha Airlines. I never flew them, but I liked their logo. I used to work for Fed Ex in Customer Service at Los Angeles International Airport, and I remember serving Aloha Airlines employees sometimes with their shipments (they got a discount off Fed Ex shipping). Fed Ex employees also got discounts on Aloha, although I never took them up on it (they flew to Hawaii only from Los Angeles).

Finally, there was American Trans Air (ATA). I really have fond memories of ATA. For one, when I worked at Fed Ex, again I used to give discounts to their employees. Additonally, Fed Ex employees got really, really good deals on ATA. We could even buy cheap tickets from the airline, for ourselves, and even for friends who travelled with us! I remember flying ATA to Orlando. I remember their theme music: "On ATA, you're on vacation....on ATA, your on vacation... on ATA...

It's sad, but they say all things must come to an end, and so goes those great airlines...Oh, well. Now that Skybus is gone, I can start flying my all-time favorite airline, Southwest, again.

I love Southwest airlines. The people are friendly, they are very professional, the people are FUNNY, and I just love it. I always said that if I ever parted ways with Fed Ex for any reason, that I would love to work at Southwest. I just hope that they can weather the storm of the bad economy (and I hope we call can, me and YOU!).