AirTran Airways will postpone delivery of 18 jets as it cuts growth plans.

Orlando-based AirTran, which has its main hub in Atlanta, will defer deliveries of the 18 Boeing 737-700 aircraft until 2013 and 2014. The planes were originally scheduled for delivery between 2009 and 2011.

AirTran plans to reduce its growth plans to no more than flat for the period running from September 2008 through at least 2009, AirTran chief executive Bob Fornaro said in a written statement.

The airline has four scheduled deliveries remaining for 2008 and six deliveries scheduled for 2009. But to stay flat, "we'll accomplish that a number of ways," said AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson. "You can either park airplanes, sell airplanes, defer airplanes."

AirTran operates 54 Boeing 737-700 planes and 87 Boeing 717-200 planes.

"We're doing all we can to manage through this fuel crisis," Hutcheson said. "With fuel being up, prices will rise, which means demand will go down and we need to better match capacity to demand. We need to extract better yields out of the customer."

AirTran's move follows a similar announcement earlier in the week from another low-cost carrier, New York-based JetBlue, which is postponing delivery of 21 Airbus A320 jets until 2014 through 2015. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines in March announced it expected to park dozens of jets.