Aw, damn. Do you have any insurance (credit card, travel agent) that would at least cover what you spent on the fare?

I'm hoping. I can't call till I get home from work. I bought it on my AmEx card, though, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

That sounds promising. Good luck--maybe you can get another flight, too, and still have your vacation.

I'm with ya, s_r. Our flight out was on Aloha, and our flight back was on ATA. I'm super pissed, especially since we booked through Orbitz and their advice was, "just wait a bit, someone will buy them out and honor your tickets."

From the ATA website:

ATA customers who purchased tickets using a credit card should contact their credit card company or travel agency directly for information about how to obtain a refund for unused tickets.

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. Information about submitting a claim will be available at the following website: http://www.bmcgroup.com/ataairlines.

This is a pretty interesting scenario (at least to a finance nerd like me).

ATA was acquired out of their last bankruptcy back in 2005 by distressed investment firm MatlinPatterson. It became a subsidiary of another MatlinPatterson company called Global Aero Logistics, which mostly does contract flights for the military. But GAL is not filing bankruptcy, just ATA. Though according to this article, GAL isn't doing so well either.

In a move that I can describe only as endearingly optimistic, Global Aero Logistics filed an initial prospectus for an initial public offering of MatlinPatterson's shares back in October of last year. The document describes ATA as one of its three business segments. They even amended the prospectus in January, which means as recently as two months ago they thought this thing still had life in it.

woohoo! by some bizarre fluke it looks like I bought travel insurance for the trip. There might be hope.

ugh- muddgirl- sorry!

They are the only airline ever to lose my luggage.

United's lost mine pretty regularly but they always found it and delivered it later. And were amazingly grateful on the phone when I didn't blow up at them. (poor guys! there's a job I wouldn't want.)

They found it, but had the oldest frailest man working there delivery it to my home on his back a week later (it was a big trunk sized bin).

When I was married I took ATA with my then-hubbie, who uses a wheelchair due to spinal cord injury. They lost his wheelchair. His wheelchair!