If you're looking for a pleasant holiday getaway right now with your family,
it's probable that you'll book a trip on a low-cost airline like Spirit or Southwest.
But back in the 1980s and up to the 2000s,
there was another budget option that was especially popular with travel groups: American Trans Air
American Trans Air or "ATA Airlines" was one of the most popular vacation airlines of its time
and at one point, the country's biggest charter airline.
ATA's 35-year history is a classic American dream tale
that starts with the Indianapolis-based Ambassadair Travel Club.
This was a company that took its members on customized vacations
But was only able to serve its members due to it being a private travel club and couldn't fly regularly scheduled services to the public.
In 1973, the club's owner, J George Mikelsons, needed to provide aircraft for the club.
To do that, he took out a loan and mortgaged his house to buy a Boeing 720 which he named "Miss Indy".
He was a hands-on owner and got involved in every part of his company to help make it successful.
He piloted the 720 himself, helped unload and clean the aircraft, and even gave tours at passengers destinations!
With this dedication, Mikelsons was able to buy a second 720 named "Spirit Of Indiana" a few years later.
Up to this point, Ambassadair Travel Club provided flight service all around the world,
but were still just a part of a flyers club and not their own airline yet.
It wasn't until 1981 that Ambassadair became certified as its own charter airline.
The recognized Air-carrier certification allowed the aviation section of Ambassadair to change its name
and the new airline was renamed "American Trans Air".
The airline's new Indianapolis-based charter services also opened up the airline to the public.
They weren't flying regularly scheduled services yet,
but anyone outside the travel club now had the opportunity to use their services.
So to increase capacity for these new public charter services,
they began to replace their 720s with more efficient Boeing 707s from American Airlines over the next few years.
The airline also adopted a new livery called the "Runway" livery
and was quite similar to American's livery at the time due to its aircraft being Ex-American aircraft.
In 1983, American Trans Air started asserting itself as a recognizable airline by adding two DC-10s into its fleet.
One being a -10 type from Laker Airways
and another -40 variant from Northwest Airlines with more powerful JT9D engines.
Passenger numbers skyrocketed with the addition of these new aircraft
with travel between the US and London on the airline increasing six-fold!
American Trans Air expected to continue acquiring additional aircraft from Northwest,
but Northwest decided to stop selling their extra DC-10s
which put American Trans Air at an urgent need for a new source of long-haul planes.
Since there weren't any more readily available, cheap, second-hand DC-10s going around,
the airline switched over to the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar.
They started acquiring nine of them in 1985 from TWA and Delta (and eventually more from other airlines)
and sold their DC-10-10 aircraft to Hawaiian Airlines.
The other DC-10-40 had a different fate.
The airline kept the -40 operating in its fleet, but in August 1986,
The aircraft was destroyed in a fire at Chicago O'hare after a charter flight.
The fire was caused by a mechanic accidentally setting off an oxygen generator when the aircraft was being unloaded and fortunately no one was injured.
But even with the loss of an entire DC-10,
American Trans Air remained the largest charter carrier in the United States.
Around the same time in 1984, Mikelsons created Amtran Inc.
which would be the holding company for Ambassadair and American Trans Air.
In 1985, American Trans Air worked to grow its fleet and become more efficient by acquiring the previously mentioned
L-1011s and replacing its old 707s with Boeing 727-100s from United Airlines.
The 727s would also eventually become the first aircraft to be used for regularly scheduled passenger flights
after 13 years of charter-only operations.
In 1986, American Trans Air began their first scheduled service between Indianapolis, Indiana and Fort Myers, Florida.
From this point forward going into the 90s, American Trans Air, now nicknamed ATA,
continued its growth as a scheduled air carrier by adding regularly flown passenger services from
Indianapolis to popular vacation destinations like Miami, New York, Honolulu, and Las Vegas.
ATA (also) transported thousands of troops during the 1991 gulf war
and during other military operations with the activation of the civil reserve air fleet (CRAF).
Aircraft were also contracted to fly military personnel and their families between Philadelphia and European air bases.
While ATA's military operations were proving to be successful,
the airline kept increasing its scheduled service to more vacation destinations in
Hawaii, Mexico, and the Caribbean, as well as opening up a second hub at Chicago Midway in 1992.
To further advertise this expansion, they adopted the slogan "On ATA, You're On Vacation!"
The slogan wasn't meant to advertise luxury on ATA's aircraft but rather promote the idea of ATA as a vacation airline.
Ata's business model wasn't one of luxury
but somewhere in between a low-cost model and a full-service airline.
Throughout most of its life, ATA had most of its aircraft fitted in an all-economy layout.
This aligned perfectly for their military charter operations and a low-cost model of flying,
but despite the airline being marketed as low cost, the services on board included amenities not usually seen with budget airlines.
Free meals, snacks, checked baggage, and audio and visual entertainment
were provided on all scheduled and charter flights and every seat was made out of a comfortable leather or fabric material.
These basic yet adequate services alone didn't attract ATA's customers.
Cheap tickets and frequent flights brought passengers in by the thousands.
ATA throughout the 90s and into the 2000s grew to be the largest carrier Chicago midway,
created focus cities in Oakland, CA and Honolulu, and became a public company.
Just before the turn of the century,
Mikelsons who is still the owner of ATA, stepped down as CEO after a few bad quarters,
and handed over the leadership of the company to Stanley Pace:
someone who was brought on from Continental Airlines.
Pace tried to help the airline recover after a reputation blow from a decompression incident,
but competition from Southwest and Delta forced the airline to pull back a few lucrative scheduled services.
In the end, Pace left the company and was replaced by a board member named John Tague.
Now Tague was a man who one would call a "rapid expansionist" and in the year 2000,
Tague went all out and expanded the airline's influence after its recent hiccup.
First, he and ATA bought out a regional airline - Chicago Express - for 1.9 million and used their company as a
and used their company as a subsidiary to create "ATA Connection"
which would serve as a regional airline connecting local midwest destinations to Chicago and Indianapolis.
The second major change that Tague and ATA made was to place a giant order for
thirty-nine 737-800s and twelve 757-300s for medium and long haul operations.
These new aircraft would replace the remaining 727s in the fleet
and expand ATA's influence at Chicago Midway and Honolulu.
ATA received its first 737-800 and 757-300 halfway into 2001
and were each introduced with a new livery.
The purpose of this new livery was directed at promoting ATA as a business airline
instead of a vacation airline as part of their new business model.
But all these new aircraft and purchasing of airport gates and landing slots
turned out to be very costly to the airline.
And it couldn't have come at a worse possible time either, because a year later in 2001,
The aftermath of the September 11th attacks bared its fangs on the aviation industry
This marked the end of ATA's fruitful expansion and began a slow downfall of the carrier.
Due to the current state of the industry and now rising fuel costs,
the company experienced extreme financial troubles after 2001.
The first thing the airline did emerging from 2001 was to restructure itself
and Mikelsons was brought out of retirement to save his airline.
ATA's parent company changed its name to ATA Holding Corp. in 2002,
and a year later, ATA's official name was changed from "American Trans Air"
to "ATA Airlines" to differentiate itself from AirTran Airways.
But the rebranding and the decision to keep taking on new aircraft didn't fix the airline's financial troubles,
and on October 26th, 2004 ATA filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Anyone who had stock in ATA shares lost all their money and the company was de-listed from the market.
This wasn't the end for the airline however, as ATA continued to operate throughout its first bankruptcy.
Southwest Airlines made a high bid for most of ATA's gates at Chicago
and entered into a codeshare agreement in exchange for non-voting stock in the airline.
This meant that ATA was saved by Southwest for the time being
and passengers now had the ability to travel on ATA to destinations not served by Southwest such as Hawaii.
ATA's new business focus also took passengers to more business oriented destinations
like San Francisco and Dallas/Fort Worth.
Heading into 2005, ATA discontinued its regional ATA Connection branch, reduced flights to Indianapolis,
and focused on point-to-point services outside of Chicago Midway
that would benefit Southwest focused cities from the codeshare agreement.
With reductions in services, ATA returned many leased 737 and 757 aircraft to Boeing
and continued to cut their flights from Boston, Newark, Miami, Denver, and their hub at Indianapolis.
Another round of flight cuts came in December of the same year,
leaving ATA with one gate at Midway and only 52 departures a day company-wide.
Fortunately in 2006, ATA was brought out of bankruptcy with a $100 million investment by creditors
and the company was made private.
But the airline continued to shrink, and ATA entered into its final few years.
With the injection of cash into ATA, the airline brought back a few services into Chicago and some west coast destinations.
They then announced they would be purchasing nine of Northwest Airlines' remaining DC-10-30s
to replace their L-1011s in charter operations.
But this comeback was short-lived, and in 2007,
ATA once again began removing flights off of its schedule.
Continuing losses and poor use of ATA's DC-10s caused the current CEO to resign in 2008
and board chairman John Dennison was brought on and served until the end of ATA.
On April 2nd, 2008 ATA declared bankruptcy and immediately suspended all flight operations
Flights still in the air made it to their destination safely while any flights that hadn't yet departed remain grounded.
ATA's last flight, a 757 operating from Honolulu to Phoenix that had taken off before the announcement,
landed at 8am the next day.
The reason given for the bankruptcy was cited as a loss of a military contract from FedEx,
rising fuel costs, and poor investment of the DC-10 aircraft.
Southwest bought any remaining assets from ATA at $7.5 million
not including aircraft, airport facilities, or employees.
Southwest now owns any trademarks or logos of the airline
which means a competitor can't use the goodwill of the brand to try and bring the airline back anytime soon.
ATA was an airline that started as an American dream, but ended in a slow but painful downfall.
During their 35 year run, the airline did pretty well for themselves until the events of September 11 and the plague of rising fuel costs.
ATA was a decently safe carrier as well, with no fatalities or loss of any aircraft on any of its flights.
But obviously, a dream and a good safety record aren't enough to keep a company afloat.
Looking back, a major cause for their downfall besides fuel costs and loss of lucrative freight and charter contracts was competition from other airlines.
Ata was constantly pressured by other airlines to pull their services through ticket pricing
and the airline failed to make a name for itself as a large independent carrier.
Some might say that a frequent flyer program might have helped,
but the airline had already introduced one in 2003 called ATA Travel Awards.
It was one of the most generous programs out there:
offering a free companion ticket after 3 trips, the ability to earn twice the number of credits on a trip to Hawaii,
and the ability to combine points with earned Southwest "Rapid Rewards".
Even with the new loyalty program and a new business model, they failed to adapt to the market effectively.
It's debatable, but maybe ATA had the right idea to form codeshares with Southwest and become more of a business oriented airline.
But that was a market already highly concentrated by US Legacy carriers.
It's possible if ATA had better marketing and timing of the introduction of its aircraft in the new millennium,
there's a chance they could have survived for much longer and maybe we could see them still flying today.
But still, with all possibilities in this world, it's hard to say what actually could have saved the airline.
In the end, all we have now are memories of a vacation airline
that once flew millions of happy passengers to their vacation destinations.
They left their mark on the aviation world by defining what it means to be a holiday airline with their tagline:
Thanks for watching everyone!
This was another fun airline to research and do a video on.
Apparently you guys enjoyed the past couple videos I did, so I'm gonna keep making these little documentaries!
If any of you have flown ATA or have any memories you'd like to share,
please feel free to let me know down in the comments below!
If you like this video, feel free to like and subscribe and always stay safe and have a wonderful day everyone!