Free The Animal

It's life, I suppose. No guarantees.

After filing for Chapter 11 on April 2, 2008 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis, IN, ATA Airlines has discontinued all operations and cancelled (sic) all current and future flights. Following the loss of a key contract for our military charter business, it became impossible for ATA to continue operations. Unfortunately, we were not in a position to provide our customers or others with advance notice.

My brother-in-law, his wife and two kids -- who coincidentally just spent the weekend with us up in Arnold -- were literally headed out the door to catch an ATA flight to Maui from Oakland when Rob decided to check his email.

Man, that's gotta hurt; and the potential lost money is the least of it to my mind.

ATA currently is unable to provide refunds to customers who purchased tickets directly from ATA with cash or a check. These customers may be able to obtain a full or partial refund for their unused tickets by submitting a claim in ATA’s Chapter 11 proceedings.

Yea, good luck with that; and even if it ever materializes, it'll take well more than a year. Hopefully those who paid with a credit card will be able to initiate a chargeback. Because of my line of work I've had a lot of experience with companies going BK whilst owing me money. I have only one single time every recovered anything from a Ch 11 or Ch 7 claim. As I recall, it was like 15 cents on the dollar, paid out over several years. And they never did complete the payments.