Soutwest and AirTran should be fully integrated by the end of 2014 according to an e-mail by the airline. 

Domestic AirTran flights can currently be booked through Southwest which is a nice option. Over Thanksgiving we used Rapid Rewards points to fly AirTran to Florida and flew one leg on each airline for the way home. It would be nice to have the option to book international travel to the Caribbean with the Companion Pass. However, I’m guessing it would probably take a boatload of points to do so.

When the airlines become fully integrated, Rapid Rewards will become the loyalty program of the combined airline. According to Southwest: We will continue to share information about the integration as it is available. Thank you for your loyalty, and we look forward to seeing you onboard soon.

After flying Southwest quite a bit in 2013 and also flying a few flights with AirTran, I have to say that both airlines exceded expectations.

• Employees for Southwest are friendlier than AirTrans (not that AirTran employees weren’t nice).
• I much prefer Southwest’s boarding and seating procedures. Shockingly not having assigned seats have made boarding much quicker than the traditional ways of waiting for your group and finding an assigned seat. When we flew AirTran, for 2/3 flights they assigned us separate seats, we never had this issue with Southwest.
• AirTran had possibly the funniest inflight safety announcements done by the flight attendants.
• I got to use Gogo inflight internet on a couple of AirTran flights and the service worked very well. Southwest uses a satellite based wifi system and has free live and on-demand television compliments of dish. I haven’t used wifi on Southwest but I plan to try it on an upcoming flight.

What are your thoughts on AirTran and Southwest finally integrating into one airline in 2014?