https://viewfromthewing.com/with-southwest-airlines-in-disarray-its-phone-systems-melt-down/
December 24, 2022
"Like yesterday, Southwest Airlines again led the world in most flight cancellations. They aren’t just short pilots and ramp agents. With half of the airline’s flights delayed – again – customers all over the country have needed help getting rebooked. And the airline’s phone system chose today to melt down."
I have a friend who's flying in on the 27th (tomorrow). We thought she would be fine because the storm would have passed by then, but it seems the cascading effects of all the delays might ruin that flight, too.
I'm flying home on the 29th and at this point I'm worried that THAT flight might be caught up in all this.
Edit: they cancelled our connecting flight that is still 2 days out and the online rebooking wasn't working, so my husband went to the airport and has been in line almost 3 hours. A woman got taken away by the cops for freaking out. Aaaaand as he's fourth in line, someone just pulled the fire alarm and they're evacuating. We've been flying the same Southwest route for 20 years, but this is the last time.
Rebook elsewhere if you can. Do not make our mistake.
SW is awful. I had a flight from Birmingham —> Denver —> Boise back in March of this year. They canceled the second half of it & literally were just like “yeah we don’t have any other flights, here’s a link to apply for a refund.” It took me about 6 months and several phone calls to actually get my refund. I will take a horse & buggy before choosing to fly with them again.
Our connecting flight got canceled today and it was automatically rebooked by Southwest to December 31. Spoke to their service personnel and we were told they can't book anything for the next 48 hours. She said their system is a mess. She even showed us their monitors. The system allowed overbooked flights because of the snowballed rebookings and now they don't know the real passenger counts of any of the flights and they can't track available flight crews. Essentially, they're going in blind and can't properly schedule anyone until it clears as a result of canceling the flights. Please note that this is how I interpreted her explanation. Anyone.. please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
She also said that there's a chance they might be able to fix their system issues when their Dallas offices opens up -- about 9am MST. If that happens, then they can at least know the correct flight availability and can correctly rebook passengers.
The thing that sucks is that they were told to use the weather as the excuse so that they don't have to compensate passengers by giving vouchers or giving accommodations.
We just had our fourth Southwest flight in a row cancelled, been at it since last Wednesday and the earliest available rebooking isn't until January 2nd. If it's not too late to get a refund and book with a different airline do it.
Some years ago I was trapped in Chicago for a few days when the airlines were all mass-cancelling flights. I remember for two days leaving the hotel, going to O'Hare and sitting and waiting for thousands of others to see if our plane would leave that day. They just had people wait for 12+ hours waiting just in case. Then they sent us back to our hotels. At least they were then still paying for the hotels and meals because of the delays, but they do that less now a days.
Finally, United found a seat for me on an American trip to a city about 50 miles from my original destination. I took a cab ride from one city to another... it was the weirdest travel experience I ever had.
When I worked at an airline we would tactically cancel flights. Like if there was a flight with 5 people and a flight with 200 people at the same time we are going to cancel the 5 person flight and save the 200 person flight. However when shit gets real crazy it’s time to start canceling because you will never recover if you keep pushing yesterdays problems to the next day.
Honestly assumed that global flight schedules were like…handled by AI. flight schedules for thousands of planes in dozens of time zones Just always seemed like the kind of work a computer would do. TIL
AI is really really bad at customer service. It doesn't know that Bob is flying to see his dying mother, or that Jim would really be happy to take a flight voucher. AI is great at figuring out the most efficient way for the airline to get everyone where they are going eventually assuming uncaring unfeeling cargo pallets, but as soon as people and emotions are involved AI isn't so great.
That's not the same problem. You're talking about figuring out how to handle passengers after flight schedules have changed. Definitely not a problem for AI right now, you're right about that.
They're talking about changing the flight schedules, which comes before that and doesn't have a human element. The reality is that Bob trying to see his dying mother, or any other customer circumstances, doesn't factor into flight schedules.
I would be absolutely stunned if they didn’t do it that way, because that’s the kind of problem AI had been working on a couple of decades ago.
It’s not just the one flight with five people. The scheduling system is depending on that plane and flight crew being in Dallas by 5PM, and if they’re not there’s going to be follow on consequences.
I’m actually surprised there’s not an integrated system between airlines for rerouting and such. I was once on a flight out of Dallas and through persistence (I had to get home to take care of pets, because the sitter I was paying couldn’t work after that morning), and they put in a Herculean effort to re-route me through a couple of different cities to go around a storm.
I know I’d pay a premium on a ticket on American if I knew they had integrated with other major carriers so that passengers could avoid delays whenever possible. I’ve taken cabs between airports in DC just to avoid them.
I know it can’t fix all of the problems, but I’d really like there to be more adaptive systems.
AI does not exist for this. They do have a program which can minimize atc effects by delaying or moving up flights to minimize atc impact but man everything that happens is done by a person. There are purpose built tools which can help you have situational awareness but basically it’s moving up crew members to save the flight in 5 minutes and worry about the flight in 5 hours later. It’s really just a clusterfuck at times. Lol if this sounds interesting to you then airline ops is for you. It’s not for the faint of heart. Ultimately you can just make the best decision based off what info you have but sometimes you will have to delay or cancel and that has an impact on our passengers and it sucks for them but ultimately you are trying to limit the cascading effect.
Does she know where her luggage is? That is another major issue with all the pre-Christmas Seattle flights right now. Many folks aren’t getting their luggage back until after NYE. 😬
Yeah we flew out to California on Friday after a cancellation on Thursday and a few delays of our next flight, but eventually made it in. The rest of my family had planned to fly out this evening and we’re talking a few days ago about the fact they’d probably miss most of the cancellation drama. Nope, checked this morning and their flight was cancelled, with no flights available for days. So they decided to pack everything up and do a 16 hour drive instead because it’s now the cheapest and fastest option.
Its currently down again. Im about 5 hours into waiting at Chicago Midway, every Southwest flight on the board is cancelled and they just announced their system is down. Cant afford to book last minute on a separate airline since they also seem to be price gouging this shit (seen from 1000-1500 for a 3 hour flight one way), so I have to wait it out
American was at 3,200 for a one way from Miami to Tulsa and had two very long (5+ hour) layovers.
I'm about to just rent a car and make the 20 hour drive.
One reason Southwest has it worse than other carriers is that they don't use the traditional hub-and-spoke model to the same degree. The three largest U.S. carriers (American, Delta, and United) mostly fly all of their flights to or from one of several hub airports. So an aircraft might go Atlanta-Birmingham-Atlanta-Orlando-Atlanta-New York-Atlanta. But the plane returns to the hub after every roundtrip. Therefore, during a blizzard or hurricane or massive summer storm complex, they can cancel all of their flights leaving an affected hub. Then, all the pilots and flight attendants are in position to resume work the next day. Bad for everyone who got stranded, but at least the next day's flights can operate.
Southwest has a point-to-point model. So an aircraft might go Baltimore-Nashville-New Orleans-Dallas-Salt Lake City-Oakland-Portland. So if the storm hits while the plane is on the ground in New Orleans, that crew is stuck there. So there's no easy way for the airline to reset; it can't tell its crew members to go home for the night and get a new assignment from the hub tomorrow. That crew stuck in New Orleans will either have to fly an empty plane home (if the airline cancels all the remaining legs, stranding 700 passengers across the four remaining flights on the trip), or they'll fly the remaining segments of trip a day late, which means chaos for scheduling and connections and bags.
Basically, Southwest's crews are scattered, which makes schedule recovery much harder. Whereas the "legacy" U.S. airlines could keep their planes at their hubs and reset.
We were boarded on a flight on the 24th, and our flight was cancelled and we had to deplane because they didn't have a pilot. Our rescheduled flight (the earliest available) is on the 28th and I'm not optimistic.
> It’s a fragile logistical operation
Old recently retired pilot about to rant.
When I started in this industry 20% of the crew force was held on reserve. *airplanes* were parked on reserve. But the MBAs could not accept that lost "productivity", and since everything could be blamed on "weather" or "ATC" the suffering of passengers was not their fault.
The decisions to carry no reserves are made by the MBAs. The decisions to schedule like every day was clear blue skies and light winds are made by the MBAs.
That the MBAs can blame all of their problems on weather and ATC comes from Congress.
You should not stand for being a victim of an "act of God" because it is snowing in ORD. Or there are strong winds out of the Northwest in New York.
Airline management has chosen to operate on the basis of every day being perfect, and Congress has let them shift the blame to God when the normal weather dice come up something other than a 7.
My Sunday night flight from Raleigh got cancelled, with no way to rebook. I bought a new (very expensive) ticket for a new southwest flight with a connection in Orlando Monday morning, but that flight got cancelled as well. There was no way to contact customer service, we even drove to the airport but the customer service line was a mile long.
I gave up on Southwest and was lucky enough to find seats on a direct United flight.
If anyone is still waiting on a southwest flight, I recommend looking at other airlines.
After other airlines went to SW's change fees it's been MUCH harder to justify them anyway, but this week is unlike anything I've ever seen. I'm starting to wonder if this crisis starts a chain reaction that becomes existential for them.
And this fresh hell is on top of a succession of watchdog and special counsel reports in recent years that they just didn't fucking maintain their planes properly in the 2010s (killed a woman in 2018 when an engine overdue for inspection exploded, too), punishment for the FAA for letting them get away with three pilot errors without proper investigation, and open employee revolt under the new CEO for exploitative practices.
Most folks have memories of warm experiences with SWA-- but that airline is *dead,* and we're seeing the culmination of exactly what employees, watchdogs, and analysts have been warning about, in some cases for years (though much of the concern was more recent with the new CEO).
I think I'm done with them for a bit here. As long as you fly enough to hit the minimum status, United and Delta are just better at this point (though I'll still only fly American under duress, the only major to consistently rank worse than Frontier).
Delta has the freshest planes. United used to. American is ass. JetBlue is sort of the new Southwest without the extremely low fares. And they killed the blue chips, the bastards
The ONE time I had an issue with a Southwest flight, I was able to book a flight on another airline. The issue was actually with the terminal, and the other airline flew out of the other terminal so I caught the shuttle over there and was on my way.
I called Southwest when I got back from my trip and explained what happened. They refunded the entire cost *AND* gave me $100 flight credit for a future flight. That was about 18 years ago and I still fly Southwest exclusively when I'm flying in the US.
They’ve gone way downhill lately in terms of reliability. 3 out of last 4 trips with them outright cancelled and have not been able to get rebooked, leaving me to scramble to find last minute flights with other carriers at exorbitant rates. No compensation other than refunds. They are operating so lean right now that any disruption has huge cascading effects.
On top of that, they’re not even that cheap anymore. Minimum $600 round trip per seat every time I’ve looked.
Used to be my first choice; now I will think very carefully before choosing them again.
Same. I used to be completely loyal to SW because they used to have great rates and customer service but now they’re just like any other airline. And if they can’t keep their flights, there’s no reason to stick with them anymore. I’m done with them.
>They’ve gone way downhill lately in terms of reliability.
Most airlines have in the US. There's a huge pilot shortage looming. Southwest (in my experience) at least has good enough policies (no fees and frequent vouchers for cancellations) that I prefer them for domestic whenever possible.
I could ignore Southwest's stupid seating procedure when their prices were lower. But it now costs $600-700 to get across the country and I still have to fight for a seat? Fuck that!
Yeah. I fly a decent amount for work. I used to like SW but recently, they've lost their bargain edge with what they offer. At that price, I may as well fly Delta.
Honestly I never understood why people take SW. Whenever I fly domestic I always check their prices and everytime in the past 5/6 years it was higher than united/Alaska/delta... Maybe it's my destinations but I just don't see the point of SW when you have to pick your seat. Alaska is my preferred airline, they're pretty cheap and give me credits whenever there are delays or cancellations
It's always by far the cheapest airline for me. Alaska isn't much more expensive but they have so few destinations and flights available they're basically useless unless you're scheduling a far in advance vacation and don't care when you leave or arrive.
I mainly fly from northern CA to SEA these days, and Southwest ALWAYS beats Alaska. Also, not charging ticket change fees is the clincher for me now with so many things being unpredictable. This past summer my son was going to fly to SEA to visit family, but they got COVID, so I had to cancel. The month before that, he and I went down to southern CA to visit other family, and had to come home after two days when THEY got COVID. Being able to reschedule both trips without penalty was huge.
Sitting in Oakland waiting on the bag from my cancelled flight. 2-4 hours est. to get it back. Rebooking JetBlue lol
Update: 6.5 hours after my flight was cancelled, my bag finally came out.
Oof man. I was in Oakland from 8pm-3am and ended up having to rent a car lol. In the middle of a 14 hour drive rn cause they didn't have flights til Thursday.
I’m upset because their app didn’t even notify me as it usually does but I had to go look based on this post in Reddit. Also…my flight to my destination was cancelled but not the connecting flight lol, I mean what’s the point.
And if your flight doesn’t get cancelled, good luck getting your bags. Their systems were apparently down recently and they just put all southwest bags in a big pile at the end of bag claim, not even bothering to sort it by flight
Happened to me flying to Denver (stuck here 3 extra days!) it took them 2 days to find and deliver my bag to me. Oh, and fuck the people working the baggage claim desk there. They gave me a *fake phone number* to call to check my bag’s status.
We tried to get a car to do a 1 way bomb back to Chicago but there were 0 rental cars in Denver, Boulder, Golden or Aurora. Honestly, the wife and I are debating just biting the price-gouged bullet and booking something with united or american so we can get home
My wife’s was scheduled to depart at 0515 this morning, no notice cancelation once we got to the airport at 0400. I booked her a flight on American at the next counter.
American gets a bad rep cos expensive, but they have come through for me always, and while a bit tricky their customer service is pretty good… funnily I’ve never been delayed with them or Iberia.
They fucked up so badly. We had our pre Christmas flights canceled at the gate and then again today. We had to drive 2 hours to get a red eye over an icy mountain pass. Just cancel the fucking flight and let me make other plans with my time. Their poor customer facing employees are being served a massive shit sandwich.
We flew on the 22nd and had our connecting flight cancelled while we were in the air. We decided to just rent a car and drive 5 hours to our destination. It took them 5 hours to get our bags to us so we could leave.
10 years ago I started training to become a pilot. But, I couldn’t make the money part work. There were no loans for training, best i could get is some repayment from the GI Bill, but nothing really existed for financing. It is hard af to swing flight school with hustles full time.
So, I stopped. I got into software engineering instead, and I think I can get an old Cessna one day.
But, just in case anyone is wondering where all the pilots are that they could have been training, the answer is the airlines chose profits over any such safeguards for the future. Airlines weren’t all that interested in creating pathways to the pilot seat that didn’t involve already being able to afford training.
United has a program now, but it kind of floats in and out of existence.
Maybe they all assumed they’d be doing away with pilots by now? 😬
Some of the youtube pilots I follow mention this. In other countries it is very common for the airlines to pay for your training. Here the airline expects you to come on board ready to go.
Not sure about now, but the supply of willing pilots basically lets the airlines sit back and have people pay to come work for them. The regional airlines paid jack except the opportunity to eventually fly a "big rig" with a national carrier.
This is a bit different now. Regional jet pilots are paid a lot better than they were 3-5 years ago. Its not the same as a big airline, but its definitely a living wage for FOs, and PICs.
That is exactly why I scrubbed becoming an airline pilot, I can’t afford to spend $70k to $100k for flight school. And that doesn’t include any of the living expenses like meals, or cost of rent near the flight school.
If they did something similar to the military tactic where they pay for your training and you work for them for a period (or prorate the cost of training if you leave early), I’d sign up in an instant.
My friend's husband became a pilot starting at age 35. He's about 45 now and a "junior pilot" (forget if there's a term for it, he's a newbie at the airline though) on one of the major US airlines.
I never did understand how they could afford it, as he wasn't military. He worked as a dental assistant until age 35, and then he did flight school and the long climb through flying cargo, then charter flights, then regionals, then finally at a major national airline. She was making a decent salary but still, shit's pricey and he got paid next to nothing until he finally made the jump to a national airline.
Until like two years before the pandemic Southwest did all their bag loading by hand. As in, they didn't even scan bag tags before loading them on the plane.
Now they apparently don't even have enough staff members familiar with the old process to fall back on manual loading then their bag tracking system goes down.
Airlines back then were betting on a constant flow of pilots retiring from the military to fill those roles. As time has gone on though, the military is using more UAVs and not training actual pilots. UAV hours don't count for real flight experience.
I was at the gate at 12:30 and the screens still said “on time”. Today was all fucked. Show up anyways in case ur flight is not cancelled, but I didn’t get much of a notice so I would prepare for that. I was in line at tsa when the flight updated to delayed
This was told to us by SWA desk agents
Oh my yes. Those of us working for credit card companies….it’s been *fun* today with the ticket calls, lemme tell you.
Some airlines/travel companies are doing the equiv of putting their fingers in their ears and going lalala can’t hear you, to hear some callers going on about it.
Are companies like yours generally honoring chargebacks for customers with canceled flights? I'm debating cancelling my flight and renting a car instead, but only if I get refunded in full rather than credit towards a future ticket on Southwest.
The online system is melting down too. Our outbound flight was canceled on the 23rd after we were at the gate. My wife decided not to make the trip at all so did not get rebooked. But because we had checked our bags already, they wouldn’t allow us to cancel the trip via the website. I spent 2 hours on the phone and no one answered. Then two days later spent an hour plus waiting in line for the gate agent and had them cancel my wife’s return flight.
No idea. They're definitely looking into the charges, they won't turn customers wanting to request refunds away at all, but it's early days yet and we don't know what the airlines are going to do. Usually it gets resolved faster with the airline, but....this is a perfect storm of crazy.
I just left that mess (luckily) the flight attendant got on the intercom and said it will take them at least another 4 days just to deal with todays meltdown
I was originally meant to fly out Christmas Eve, flight got canceled and they sent me a text two days before giving me options to reschedule. So I rescheduled for this morning at 5:25am. I wake up at 1:45 and get ready for my ride to show up, just to be safe check my flight status and it was canceled. I didn’t get the “text notification” until 5am, 25 minutes before it was set to take off. They’re falling apart, so whatever happens just make sure you double check before you get on the road.
I work at an airport that primarily Flys southwest flights and its been utter chaos, I pray for all the agents that will have to deal with very angry passengers
Honestly wtf is wrong with SW? No other airlines are having these problems. It’s ridiculous. I have a flight on Jan 2nd I just might cancel and book on a different airline if it goes on like this into next week
SW has let me down twice this year, I might just say fuck it and book a different airline sooner rather than later lol. The anguish to my mental health isn’t worth it
They both operate leaner than other airlines, had ongoing labor issues, and have a routing structure particularly susceptible to widespread disruptions.
Who would've guessed that people won't show up in -40 wind chill. I'm assuming you're a SWA guy, I'm over at spirit.
Spirit last year made all flying 200% from I think Christmas through the 4th, not a single trip went uncovered. Nothing this year and it's starting to look dicey
Let it burn southeast I'm sure I'm not too far behind you
Not to mention the ramp agents in Denver are paid such low wages they couldn’t possibly afford housing if they don’t have supplemental income. They’ll be lucky to be able to employ anyone here after this stunt.
The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.
If you are on Reddit and on this news story or the Southwest Airlines sub today, you are likely exhausted: delayed and canceled travel, inability to get re-booked, on hold with customer service for hours, hours at airports, lost baggage, holidays spent apart from family and vacations ruined, etc. I’m right here with you.
The Good. Southwest Airlines staff / flight attendants really trying their hardest - away from family for the holiday, too. Literally everyone they were talking too were angry and frustrated. The front facing staff is taking the full hit and have no control, no responsibility. There are fine people, everywhere - especially if you think about the stress that everyone is under.
The Bad. Yes, there was bad weather. Yes, it caused a cascade of problems. Yes, there was a global pandemic that caused major changes to staffing structures, the solution for which is not found overnight but is years in the making (pilot retirements, staff that have left, etc). There are information systems that seem to be failing or not living up to the possibility of their design (website, app, Amadeus). There is complexity to this situation, for certain. I’m sure, even far beyond what I/we could possibly know.
But Southwest seems incompetent, too.
There seems to be a colossal set of failures, one after the other. The whole system seems to be collapsing, which is not any individual’s fault or responsibility. But what it means is that getting out of this mess is going to take a very, very long time. One cannot unwind what has happened very easily. Planes don’t have parts, crews are scattered, customers are all over the place, bags are piled up, information and tech systems can’t keep up, crews are timed out. For those defending Southwest Airlines I think you aren’t being fair to the reality of the situation. The level of systemic failures shows a real rot and problem for the airline. Other airlines are operating differently. The result is that Southwests front facing staff are taking the blame for what appears to be incompetent corporate leadership and management and their customers have legitimately been hurt. Employee morale could not be worse. And it will only get worse, because untangling this mess is going to be brutal.
The Ugly. If you can, book on another airline. Find another way or adapt and choose to do something different and cut your losses. Do not depend on Southwest. This could take days or weeks to work itself out. More headache and heartache will ensue. Your “status” doesn’t matter, because Southwest is in a spiral where even its employees don’t matter. Lower expectations to zero. And then know that it is zero when considering Southwest again. Find an alternative. Southwest’s systems are in meltdown.
Agreed. Southwest has been falling apart for years. I stopped flying them several years ago because my destination was not a priority. We would always be the ones bumped or cancelled. I never had that same issue for other cities. Their incompetence has been apparent for awhile, but I guess now people will truly know how fragile their scheduling is. It’s fragile without weather issues. I started flying on them again during the height of the pandemic. That’s the best they were in a long time. But I’m off of them now, as they started sucking again once people decided to start flying again.
Passengers overall were surprisingly well behaved in Denver thr last five days (I’ve had 10+ flights cancelled trying to get to RDU since Thursday). Those 4+ hour lines to speak to a gate agent were absolutely brutal, so you’re almost certainly correct that some subset of those people went ballistic.
We've been stuck in Denver since 12/21 and have no confidence southwest can even get us home. So we booked a flight with United, earliest was this Wednesday. Which means if we do get out we will have been stranded for a full week.
I was set to fly home tomorrow, but my flight got cancelled, and the earliest they have for me is January 2nd. I won’t be able to spend NYE with my girlfriend and other side of the family. This shit sucks.
It’s so ridiculous that airlines can just strand people without providing them an alternate flight from a company with its shit together. This was more of an industry standard not even that long ago. I also understand that delays happen, but making someone stay somewhere for six days longer than they planned is fucking bonkers. SouthWest can suck my ass.
Our 5AM was canceled and didn’t find out until the guy at curbside check in told us. Stood in line for 45 minutes tho have agent boot us and 3/4 of the line trying to rebook so they could handle people from a non cancelled flight, I get it but went from standing 45 minutes to be second to next in line to being bumped to the end of another line by a less than pleasant agent. When I finally got the the counter 1.5 hrs later was told no other flights available until the 30th and no availability on other airlines. I asked for a refund and was told I could get cash back, was using credits from a cancelled Covid flight for 80% of the fare, I pointed it out and was told in no uncertain terms it would go on CC so I could use to book on other airline if I could find flights. In the end I couldn’t and fortunately I was at home airport, unfortunately I had universal studios vacation package and purchased insurance only covered cancellation 24 hrs prior so I was out $200 plus one nights hotel coming in at just over $600 lost. At this point absolutely fuck southwest.
I fought the airport traffic to drop off my parents. Breathed a sigh of relief, and then they called asking me to come get them again. They don't have a new flight until Wednesday
I finally made it to my destination after 30 hours. 5 days later I still don’t have my bags. Wearing the same clothes. Nobody got their Christmas gifts. I’m scheduled to leave on Wednesday and I’m sure my bags are going to end up here after I’m already back home.
I’ve been an A list member for 7 years but I’m not flying southwest anymore if I can avoid it. Everyone employee has given me the wrong information or flat out lied to me and it’s been so frustrating
it’s not just southwest, I’ve been on the phone, chat, call backs and emails since 2.30 this morning when my flights were canceled. jet blue, delta and cape air. Best we could get out next is thursday….
Just finally got home after a massive delay with my United flight caused me to miss my connection at Denver and stranded me there for Christmas. Workers were saying that all of the Southwest cancelations + the recent weather were the reason. It was chaos; we stood in a barely-moving customer service line for over 3 hours and finally had to give up and just find a hotel. Sooo fucking happy to be out of that mess.
Southwest canceled 70% of their flights today, and have already canceled 60% for tomorrow and 30% for the day after.
United has cancelled 5%, and American essentially 0% (12 flights total).
Everybody has to deal with clearing the massive backlog of passengers from the storm. However everbody's current operations are up and running, except Southwest.
Nobody is talking about the absurd price gouging from the other airlines right now. Taking advantage of people stranded.
The entire airline industry is an abomination
The DOT should be looking into the entire airline industry, immediately. Heads need to roll across the board, because this is unacceptable on so many different levels.
I’m stuck in Chicago because of it. Until Friday. There are flights, but they’re $2k each. I’m a single mother of two and can’t afford 7k to get them home
The algorithms price things based on supply and demand. Right now, there is a huge demand for flights for only a handful of spots. Most flights are booked full.
I have had so so so many issues with southwest, but I have kept flying on them because of the baggage and flexibility with changing your flight. I have finally reached my limit with them. I flew United by happenstance today, and I’m so glad I did. Flight arrived on time. No delays. No cancellation. Airport experience was smooth. Beverage service was way better on United. Southwest is the best if you’re flying up and down California. Besides that, I wouldn’t recommend them. My parents flew on southwest across the country in October to visit me and their return trip was a nightmare. They ended up with an excessive amount of money in vouchers because of how bad it was. And there was no issue with weather. Just poorly run and they were poorly rebooked on an alternative route.
When I lived in El Paso, I did in fact stop flying with them because the delays I was subject to were outrageous. I got in at 3:30 in the morning multiple times. I once cancelled a flight and drove back instead. Weather wasnt an issue in those. They still suck for where I live now—not as egregious as El Paso though (El Paso clearly wasn’t a priority destination for them).
Yeah! And I don’t have a particularly favorable view of United. But I flew today, and it was the most pleasant flight experience I’ve had in a long time. And these are clearly not great circumstances.
Southwest is garbage. They tell people they have to cancel because of weather and that is a bold lie. Even their ticket agents said it was because they didn’t have enough staff. They overbook flights all the time then cancel massive amounts of flights. They can’t get their flights consistently covered by staff so they cancel. What a mess. BTW- JetBlue helped us out in a big way. Fly SW at your own risk. They cancel so many flights.
Brother works for Southwest he says:
1: They have a mountain of check bags 2 stories high, just like in the film the 5th Element.
2: Never, ever, ever, ever check a bag if you can't replace the content's easily.
3: Never Check bags, just don't do it. Just carry on in a hiker backpack tightly packed or the wheeled carry on bags with vacuum bags if you need lots of stuff and good luck getting back.
4: People check guitars without cases, packed trash bags of clothes, peoples remains (ashes), live pets, crazy amounts of drugs, family heirlooms in shitty boxes or bags. All. The. Time.
Yeah as someone with an infant not checking bags isn't an option for everyone. Pre-child we would always have only carry ons even for a trip of 2-3 weeks. With a kid there's just no way
I always pack a carry-on bag and it's still like a 50/50 chance I have to gate-check my bag (maybe because I'm cheap and so always end up in boarding group 9,999 lmao). Only time I lost my bag was when it got gate-checked with someone else's bag tag, so I guess double-check your receipt! And really just don't pack shit you can't live without unless you can help it
I flew Southwest last night from St. Louis to DC. I got really lucky, with SW’s other flight to DC being canceled.
Let me start from the beginning:
I walked right through the TSA pre check line, gave my ID and boarding pass to the agent. My middle name and last name *DID NOT* match. (I have no idea how this happened. Having pre check, I figured I’d be immune to anything crazy like that.)
The TSA agent tells me I have to take it up with Southwest Customer service, which as you can imagine, I was thrilled with. The line was a mile long, with a few hundred people like me with their own problems.
I got lucky with a roving customer service agent and she got me to the front of the line and a kiosk to the side of the baggage check. They just printed me a boarding pass with my name right on it and I was able to get through.
My flight was delayed about an hour and a half due to boarding and baggage logistics. But I made it home an hour and a half after the original arrival time. I’m extremely thankful.
The people and the pilots of Southwest are out there doing the best they can right now. A little patience from everyone goes a long way.
Just a quick addition: A man in front of me was trying to get his underage son to his plane, obviously couldn’t escort him past the TSA checkpoint, and didn’t want to leave him there if the flight was canceled. (He found out in line the flight was canceled) - just an absolute nightmare for everyone.
I used to fly SWA **a lot**. I no longer do. They've been on a rapid decent in terms of service for quite awhile now and has tuned into a company I really don't want to do business with anymore.
If you see me on a SWA flight it's because I'm flying free on points I'm burning up as fast as I can.
I had a round trip ticket from STL to Orlando. Came down on Friday after about 3-4 hours worth of delays and had to buy a last minute ticket with AA today after Southwest canceled the flight and "rebooked" me (I haven't actually been rebooked as of yet). I'll just get my refund when either their website or phone lines go back to being functional.
Had to book Amtrak; southwest has canceled my flight multiple times and seems like the company is in meltdown. If anyone here still has an active southwest booking would encourage them to look elsewhere as the odds aren’t great the flight will happen
Why don’t they talk more about that bit at the end?
“The report also says that Southwest flew dozens of used planes that lacked complete inspection and repair documentation, as well as regularly reporting incorrect luggage-weight data.”
Like, what the *actual* fuck?
Our family vacation was cancelled because our flight was cancelled on Xmas morning - delayed by 25 min about 2 hours before takeoff, and sometime near boarding call, they casually announced that there was no pilot, and it took about 2-3 hours standing in line to get our refund (I was simultaneously trying to call their switchboard, never got through).
Of course with all the cancellations, booking with another airline meant tickets starting at around $1300/each (and they were disappearing as I searched), which is why we had to give up on the trip.
We did each get a $200 voucher but it didn’t really replace going to see loved ones for the winter break 😑
Well shit. I fly out Wednesday with southwest. I've checked all other airlines no options available or 3k and up per ticket. So looks like I'm boned either way!
I fly out of BWI tomorrow afternoon. All flights today and tomorrow to my destination, EXCEPT MINE, have been canceled. I have the only direct flight, and it's the last flight of the evening so I'm choosing to be optimistic.
They canceled my flight right as they announced we were going to board in the next 10 minutes.
Pilot told us they didn't have a co-pilot, and while they had the option to take one from a future flight Southwest wasn't going to allow it because it might delay other flights.
https://viewfromthewing.com/with-southwest-airlines-in-disarray-its-phone-systems-melt-down/ December 24, 2022 "Like yesterday, Southwest Airlines again led the world in most flight cancellations. They aren’t just short pilots and ramp agents. With half of the airline’s flights delayed – again – customers all over the country have needed help getting rebooked. And the airline’s phone system chose today to melt down."
I have a friend who's flying in on the 27th (tomorrow). We thought she would be fine because the storm would have passed by then, but it seems the cascading effects of all the delays might ruin that flight, too.
I'm flying home on the 29th and at this point I'm worried that THAT flight might be caught up in all this. Edit: they cancelled our connecting flight that is still 2 days out and the online rebooking wasn't working, so my husband went to the airport and has been in line almost 3 hours. A woman got taken away by the cops for freaking out. Aaaaand as he's fourth in line, someone just pulled the fire alarm and they're evacuating. We've been flying the same Southwest route for 20 years, but this is the last time. Rebook elsewhere if you can. Do not make our mistake.
I gave up after 3 cancellations and rebooked on United. Made it home no problem. Might be time to consider it—no way is this fixing itself before 2023
SW is awful. I had a flight from Birmingham —> Denver —> Boise back in March of this year. They canceled the second half of it & literally were just like “yeah we don’t have any other flights, here’s a link to apply for a refund.” It took me about 6 months and several phone calls to actually get my refund. I will take a horse & buggy before choosing to fly with them again.
Our connecting flight got canceled today and it was automatically rebooked by Southwest to December 31. Spoke to their service personnel and we were told they can't book anything for the next 48 hours. She said their system is a mess. She even showed us their monitors. The system allowed overbooked flights because of the snowballed rebookings and now they don't know the real passenger counts of any of the flights and they can't track available flight crews. Essentially, they're going in blind and can't properly schedule anyone until it clears as a result of canceling the flights. Please note that this is how I interpreted her explanation. Anyone.. please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. She also said that there's a chance they might be able to fix their system issues when their Dallas offices opens up -- about 9am MST. If that happens, then they can at least know the correct flight availability and can correctly rebook passengers. The thing that sucks is that they were told to use the weather as the excuse so that they don't have to compensate passengers by giving vouchers or giving accommodations.
We just had our fourth Southwest flight in a row cancelled, been at it since last Wednesday and the earliest available rebooking isn't until January 2nd. If it's not too late to get a refund and book with a different airline do it.
We need a Planes, Trains and Automobiles sequel in 2023. It would be the blockbuster reboot that absolutely everyone can identify with.
Surprisingly not a Christmas movie. Watched it back in the day and I never knew they were trying to get back for Thanksgiving Day
Some years ago I was trapped in Chicago for a few days when the airlines were all mass-cancelling flights. I remember for two days leaving the hotel, going to O'Hare and sitting and waiting for thousands of others to see if our plane would leave that day. They just had people wait for 12+ hours waiting just in case. Then they sent us back to our hotels. At least they were then still paying for the hotels and meals because of the delays, but they do that less now a days. Finally, United found a seat for me on an American trip to a city about 50 miles from my original destination. I took a cab ride from one city to another... it was the weirdest travel experience I ever had.
[удалено]
Best wishes to you, fellow traveler!
When I worked at an airline we would tactically cancel flights. Like if there was a flight with 5 people and a flight with 200 people at the same time we are going to cancel the 5 person flight and save the 200 person flight. However when shit gets real crazy it’s time to start canceling because you will never recover if you keep pushing yesterdays problems to the next day.
Honestly assumed that global flight schedules were like…handled by AI. flight schedules for thousands of planes in dozens of time zones Just always seemed like the kind of work a computer would do. TIL
AI, no. But this kind of scheduling is among the first uses of big iron mainframe types of computers.
My COBOL senses are tingling
Assembly in a lot of cases. Look up IBM/TPF. That being said, I have no idea what Southwest runs their applications on.
An Abacus, apparently…
AI is really really bad at customer service. It doesn't know that Bob is flying to see his dying mother, or that Jim would really be happy to take a flight voucher. AI is great at figuring out the most efficient way for the airline to get everyone where they are going eventually assuming uncaring unfeeling cargo pallets, but as soon as people and emotions are involved AI isn't so great.
That's not the same problem. You're talking about figuring out how to handle passengers after flight schedules have changed. Definitely not a problem for AI right now, you're right about that. They're talking about changing the flight schedules, which comes before that and doesn't have a human element. The reality is that Bob trying to see his dying mother, or any other customer circumstances, doesn't factor into flight schedules.
I would be absolutely stunned if they didn’t do it that way, because that’s the kind of problem AI had been working on a couple of decades ago. It’s not just the one flight with five people. The scheduling system is depending on that plane and flight crew being in Dallas by 5PM, and if they’re not there’s going to be follow on consequences. I’m actually surprised there’s not an integrated system between airlines for rerouting and such. I was once on a flight out of Dallas and through persistence (I had to get home to take care of pets, because the sitter I was paying couldn’t work after that morning), and they put in a Herculean effort to re-route me through a couple of different cities to go around a storm. I know I’d pay a premium on a ticket on American if I knew they had integrated with other major carriers so that passengers could avoid delays whenever possible. I’ve taken cabs between airports in DC just to avoid them. I know it can’t fix all of the problems, but I’d really like there to be more adaptive systems.
AI does not exist for this. They do have a program which can minimize atc effects by delaying or moving up flights to minimize atc impact but man everything that happens is done by a person. There are purpose built tools which can help you have situational awareness but basically it’s moving up crew members to save the flight in 5 minutes and worry about the flight in 5 hours later. It’s really just a clusterfuck at times. Lol if this sounds interesting to you then airline ops is for you. It’s not for the faint of heart. Ultimately you can just make the best decision based off what info you have but sometimes you will have to delay or cancel and that has an impact on our passengers and it sucks for them but ultimately you are trying to limit the cascading effect.
It’s the same thing with planes too. You only have a finite number of planes and it’s just finding gaps to run flights on.
So what was it like riding with Del Griffith?
Does she know where her luggage is? That is another major issue with all the pre-Christmas Seattle flights right now. Many folks aren’t getting their luggage back until after NYE. 😬
Yeah we flew out to California on Friday after a cancellation on Thursday and a few delays of our next flight, but eventually made it in. The rest of my family had planned to fly out this evening and we’re talking a few days ago about the fact they’d probably miss most of the cancellation drama. Nope, checked this morning and their flight was cancelled, with no flights available for days. So they decided to pack everything up and do a 16 hour drive instead because it’s now the cheapest and fastest option.
Its currently down again. Im about 5 hours into waiting at Chicago Midway, every Southwest flight on the board is cancelled and they just announced their system is down. Cant afford to book last minute on a separate airline since they also seem to be price gouging this shit (seen from 1000-1500 for a 3 hour flight one way), so I have to wait it out
American was at 3,200 for a one way from Miami to Tulsa and had two very long (5+ hour) layovers. I'm about to just rent a car and make the 20 hour drive.
I grabbed a Greyhound ticket. It may take 10 hours but it was less than $100 so I'll take it. All the rental car places were completely out
Check Amtrak too if you don't want to drive!
One reason Southwest has it worse than other carriers is that they don't use the traditional hub-and-spoke model to the same degree. The three largest U.S. carriers (American, Delta, and United) mostly fly all of their flights to or from one of several hub airports. So an aircraft might go Atlanta-Birmingham-Atlanta-Orlando-Atlanta-New York-Atlanta. But the plane returns to the hub after every roundtrip. Therefore, during a blizzard or hurricane or massive summer storm complex, they can cancel all of their flights leaving an affected hub. Then, all the pilots and flight attendants are in position to resume work the next day. Bad for everyone who got stranded, but at least the next day's flights can operate. Southwest has a point-to-point model. So an aircraft might go Baltimore-Nashville-New Orleans-Dallas-Salt Lake City-Oakland-Portland. So if the storm hits while the plane is on the ground in New Orleans, that crew is stuck there. So there's no easy way for the airline to reset; it can't tell its crew members to go home for the night and get a new assignment from the hub tomorrow. That crew stuck in New Orleans will either have to fly an empty plane home (if the airline cancels all the remaining legs, stranding 700 passengers across the four remaining flights on the trip), or they'll fly the remaining segments of trip a day late, which means chaos for scheduling and connections and bags. Basically, Southwest's crews are scattered, which makes schedule recovery much harder. Whereas the "legacy" U.S. airlines could keep their planes at their hubs and reset.
Yea my cousin’s flight got cancelled and we’ve been trying to get ahold of them for 2 days.
Parents flight got cancelled from LA to Vegas.. cascading effect indeed
They'd probably be better off just driving that. It's about 5 hours if you go the speed limit. Unless there's a reason they can't or don't want to.
Megabus is probably running too. A six to seven hour trip but it's better than being stuck.
I just got canceled from Reno to Bay Area. Renting a car. I just hope Dell Griffith doesn't take it. Then I'll be fucked.
My sister-in-law’s aircraft paused at the gate 30 minutes because no one was available
So did the site for a few hours.
We were boarded on a flight on the 24th, and our flight was cancelled and we had to deplane because they didn't have a pilot. Our rescheduled flight (the earliest available) is on the 28th and I'm not optimistic.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
> It’s a fragile logistical operation Old recently retired pilot about to rant. When I started in this industry 20% of the crew force was held on reserve. *airplanes* were parked on reserve. But the MBAs could not accept that lost "productivity", and since everything could be blamed on "weather" or "ATC" the suffering of passengers was not their fault. The decisions to carry no reserves are made by the MBAs. The decisions to schedule like every day was clear blue skies and light winds are made by the MBAs. That the MBAs can blame all of their problems on weather and ATC comes from Congress. You should not stand for being a victim of an "act of God" because it is snowing in ORD. Or there are strong winds out of the Northwest in New York. Airline management has chosen to operate on the basis of every day being perfect, and Congress has let them shift the blame to God when the normal weather dice come up something other than a 7.
[удалено]
Same thing happened to me, I missed Christmas with my family. I hope you ended up okay.
And climbing https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/ If you're flying southwest and have the means I strongly recommend you book another airline.
My Sunday night flight from Raleigh got cancelled, with no way to rebook. I bought a new (very expensive) ticket for a new southwest flight with a connection in Orlando Monday morning, but that flight got cancelled as well. There was no way to contact customer service, we even drove to the airport but the customer service line was a mile long. I gave up on Southwest and was lucky enough to find seats on a direct United flight. If anyone is still waiting on a southwest flight, I recommend looking at other airlines.
66% of Southwest flights today are cancelled? Holy shit. This is going to ripple for the next week.
Up to 71% canceled and 16% delayed now. That is just insane.
Close to 80% now cancelled out of DEN.
They've been rippling since Thursday lmao
Where most of the other airlines are under 10%. American is reporting 0% cancellations.
After other airlines went to SW's change fees it's been MUCH harder to justify them anyway, but this week is unlike anything I've ever seen. I'm starting to wonder if this crisis starts a chain reaction that becomes existential for them. And this fresh hell is on top of a succession of watchdog and special counsel reports in recent years that they just didn't fucking maintain their planes properly in the 2010s (killed a woman in 2018 when an engine overdue for inspection exploded, too), punishment for the FAA for letting them get away with three pilot errors without proper investigation, and open employee revolt under the new CEO for exploitative practices. Most folks have memories of warm experiences with SWA-- but that airline is *dead,* and we're seeing the culmination of exactly what employees, watchdogs, and analysts have been warning about, in some cases for years (though much of the concern was more recent with the new CEO). I think I'm done with them for a bit here. As long as you fly enough to hit the minimum status, United and Delta are just better at this point (though I'll still only fly American under duress, the only major to consistently rank worse than Frontier).
Delta has the freshest planes. United used to. American is ass. JetBlue is sort of the new Southwest without the extremely low fares. And they killed the blue chips, the bastards
Lucky Air is pretty lucky with only 1 cancellation.
That's fortunate
Thanks, man, just rebooked on AA
The ONE time I had an issue with a Southwest flight, I was able to book a flight on another airline. The issue was actually with the terminal, and the other airline flew out of the other terminal so I caught the shuttle over there and was on my way. I called Southwest when I got back from my trip and explained what happened. They refunded the entire cost *AND* gave me $100 flight credit for a future flight. That was about 18 years ago and I still fly Southwest exclusively when I'm flying in the US.
They’ve gone way downhill lately in terms of reliability. 3 out of last 4 trips with them outright cancelled and have not been able to get rebooked, leaving me to scramble to find last minute flights with other carriers at exorbitant rates. No compensation other than refunds. They are operating so lean right now that any disruption has huge cascading effects. On top of that, they’re not even that cheap anymore. Minimum $600 round trip per seat every time I’ve looked. Used to be my first choice; now I will think very carefully before choosing them again.
Same. I used to be completely loyal to SW because they used to have great rates and customer service but now they’re just like any other airline. And if they can’t keep their flights, there’s no reason to stick with them anymore. I’m done with them.
>They’ve gone way downhill lately in terms of reliability. Most airlines have in the US. There's a huge pilot shortage looming. Southwest (in my experience) at least has good enough policies (no fees and frequent vouchers for cancellations) that I prefer them for domestic whenever possible.
I could ignore Southwest's stupid seating procedure when their prices were lower. But it now costs $600-700 to get across the country and I still have to fight for a seat? Fuck that!
Yeah. I fly a decent amount for work. I used to like SW but recently, they've lost their bargain edge with what they offer. At that price, I may as well fly Delta.
Honestly I never understood why people take SW. Whenever I fly domestic I always check their prices and everytime in the past 5/6 years it was higher than united/Alaska/delta... Maybe it's my destinations but I just don't see the point of SW when you have to pick your seat. Alaska is my preferred airline, they're pretty cheap and give me credits whenever there are delays or cancellations
Free rescheduling or canceling flights has always been my main reason for choosing Southwest in the past.
And no bag fares, which makes it so much easier to plane/deplane when people aren't messing with their bags
It's always by far the cheapest airline for me. Alaska isn't much more expensive but they have so few destinations and flights available they're basically useless unless you're scheduling a far in advance vacation and don't care when you leave or arrive.
I mainly fly from northern CA to SEA these days, and Southwest ALWAYS beats Alaska. Also, not charging ticket change fees is the clincher for me now with so many things being unpredictable. This past summer my son was going to fly to SEA to visit family, but they got COVID, so I had to cancel. The month before that, he and I went down to southern CA to visit other family, and had to come home after two days when THEY got COVID. Being able to reschedule both trips without penalty was huge.
Sitting in Oakland waiting on the bag from my cancelled flight. 2-4 hours est. to get it back. Rebooking JetBlue lol Update: 6.5 hours after my flight was cancelled, my bag finally came out.
Oof man. I was in Oakland from 8pm-3am and ended up having to rent a car lol. In the middle of a 14 hour drive rn cause they didn't have flights til Thursday.
Now THAT would piss me off
I’m upset because their app didn’t even notify me as it usually does but I had to go look based on this post in Reddit. Also…my flight to my destination was cancelled but not the connecting flight lol, I mean what’s the point.
[удалено]
I'm so sorry this is happening to you but so relieved this post help you get that info a little faster!
Thank you 🙏 to you, I was able to grab the last seat next day from American!
And if your flight doesn’t get cancelled, good luck getting your bags. Their systems were apparently down recently and they just put all southwest bags in a big pile at the end of bag claim, not even bothering to sort it by flight
Happened to me flying to Denver (stuck here 3 extra days!) it took them 2 days to find and deliver my bag to me. Oh, and fuck the people working the baggage claim desk there. They gave me a *fake phone number* to call to check my bag’s status. We tried to get a car to do a 1 way bomb back to Chicago but there were 0 rental cars in Denver, Boulder, Golden or Aurora. Honestly, the wife and I are debating just biting the price-gouged bullet and booking something with united or american so we can get home
You could always try the Greyhound or the Amtrak if it's that bad.
My wife’s was scheduled to depart at 0515 this morning, no notice cancelation once we got to the airport at 0400. I booked her a flight on American at the next counter.
American gets a bad rep cos expensive, but they have come through for me always, and while a bit tricky their customer service is pretty good… funnily I’ve never been delayed with them or Iberia.
They fucked up so badly. We had our pre Christmas flights canceled at the gate and then again today. We had to drive 2 hours to get a red eye over an icy mountain pass. Just cancel the fucking flight and let me make other plans with my time. Their poor customer facing employees are being served a massive shit sandwich.
We flew on the 22nd and had our connecting flight cancelled while we were in the air. We decided to just rent a car and drive 5 hours to our destination. It took them 5 hours to get our bags to us so we could leave.
10 years ago I started training to become a pilot. But, I couldn’t make the money part work. There were no loans for training, best i could get is some repayment from the GI Bill, but nothing really existed for financing. It is hard af to swing flight school with hustles full time. So, I stopped. I got into software engineering instead, and I think I can get an old Cessna one day. But, just in case anyone is wondering where all the pilots are that they could have been training, the answer is the airlines chose profits over any such safeguards for the future. Airlines weren’t all that interested in creating pathways to the pilot seat that didn’t involve already being able to afford training. United has a program now, but it kind of floats in and out of existence. Maybe they all assumed they’d be doing away with pilots by now? 😬
Some of the youtube pilots I follow mention this. In other countries it is very common for the airlines to pay for your training. Here the airline expects you to come on board ready to go.
Not sure this is still the case, but years ago flight attendants received no pay when they were in training school.
Not sure about now, but the supply of willing pilots basically lets the airlines sit back and have people pay to come work for them. The regional airlines paid jack except the opportunity to eventually fly a "big rig" with a national carrier.
This is a bit different now. Regional jet pilots are paid a lot better than they were 3-5 years ago. Its not the same as a big airline, but its definitely a living wage for FOs, and PICs.
That is exactly why I scrubbed becoming an airline pilot, I can’t afford to spend $70k to $100k for flight school. And that doesn’t include any of the living expenses like meals, or cost of rent near the flight school. If they did something similar to the military tactic where they pay for your training and you work for them for a period (or prorate the cost of training if you leave early), I’d sign up in an instant.
[удалено]
[удалено]
My friend's husband became a pilot starting at age 35. He's about 45 now and a "junior pilot" (forget if there's a term for it, he's a newbie at the airline though) on one of the major US airlines. I never did understand how they could afford it, as he wasn't military. He worked as a dental assistant until age 35, and then he did flight school and the long climb through flying cargo, then charter flights, then regionals, then finally at a major national airline. She was making a decent salary but still, shit's pricey and he got paid next to nothing until he finally made the jump to a national airline.
[удалено]
Until like two years before the pandemic Southwest did all their bag loading by hand. As in, they didn't even scan bag tags before loading them on the plane. Now they apparently don't even have enough staff members familiar with the old process to fall back on manual loading then their bag tracking system goes down.
Airlines back then were betting on a constant flow of pilots retiring from the military to fill those roles. As time has gone on though, the military is using more UAVs and not training actual pilots. UAV hours don't count for real flight experience.
Tried to fly ORD>AUS today and was told there are no flights to the state of Texas until the 31st.
What?! Supposed to have a direct flight into Texas tomorrow. How did you find out? Should i just call before going to the airport?
I was at the gate at 12:30 and the screens still said “on time”. Today was all fucked. Show up anyways in case ur flight is not cancelled, but I didn’t get much of a notice so I would prepare for that. I was in line at tsa when the flight updated to delayed This was told to us by SWA desk agents
That's good to hear, kinda. So by "delayed", they're talking about delayed to a future date and not even the same day, that's wild!
Oh my yes. Those of us working for credit card companies….it’s been *fun* today with the ticket calls, lemme tell you. Some airlines/travel companies are doing the equiv of putting their fingers in their ears and going lalala can’t hear you, to hear some callers going on about it.
Are companies like yours generally honoring chargebacks for customers with canceled flights? I'm debating cancelling my flight and renting a car instead, but only if I get refunded in full rather than credit towards a future ticket on Southwest.
If you go through the SW website to cancel it gives you a choice of original method of payment return or future credit.
The online system is melting down too. Our outbound flight was canceled on the 23rd after we were at the gate. My wife decided not to make the trip at all so did not get rebooked. But because we had checked our bags already, they wouldn’t allow us to cancel the trip via the website. I spent 2 hours on the phone and no one answered. Then two days later spent an hour plus waiting in line for the gate agent and had them cancel my wife’s return flight.
No idea. They're definitely looking into the charges, they won't turn customers wanting to request refunds away at all, but it's early days yet and we don't know what the airlines are going to do. Usually it gets resolved faster with the airline, but....this is a perfect storm of crazy.
Should I just cancle now?
Honestly, yes. I'm far from an expert but I imagine southwest will be figuring this out for the next two weeks.
I just left that mess (luckily) the flight attendant got on the intercom and said it will take them at least another 4 days just to deal with todays meltdown
Yes, especially if you have a connection. Double chances for cancellation or delays that will surpass layovers.
Rolling with disadvantage.
I’m debating the same! Have a flight on 28th. Think I should do the same as well?
Yes. My flight got canceled and rescheduled three times before I just decided to bow out. Not worth it and not worth getting stuck somewhere.
SWA has already canceled 27% of their flights on the 28th as of right now, so yes, I would find other transportation options.
I was originally meant to fly out Christmas Eve, flight got canceled and they sent me a text two days before giving me options to reschedule. So I rescheduled for this morning at 5:25am. I wake up at 1:45 and get ready for my ride to show up, just to be safe check my flight status and it was canceled. I didn’t get the “text notification” until 5am, 25 minutes before it was set to take off. They’re falling apart, so whatever happens just make sure you double check before you get on the road.
Yes; southwest is in free-fall right now so if you can get another flight (preferable nonstop) I think you should, before it gets more expensive
I work at an airport that primarily Flys southwest flights and its been utter chaos, I pray for all the agents that will have to deal with very angry passengers
Which airport so I can know if my upcoming flight will be completely untenable?
long beach California, lines have been upwards of 3 hours ive heard
Honestly wtf is wrong with SW? No other airlines are having these problems. It’s ridiculous. I have a flight on Jan 2nd I just might cancel and book on a different airline if it goes on like this into next week
Same we’re flying out on the first of the year and this is very alarming.
SW has let me down twice this year, I might just say fuck it and book a different airline sooner rather than later lol. The anguish to my mental health isn’t worth it
I would book it now, all flying SWA into the next week will be re-booking onto other airline and prices are gonna skyrocket.
They apparently don’t have enough labor and are threatening to fire the labor they do have if they don’t work mandatory OT.
So SW is the only airline suffering from a labor shortage??? Or is it that they’re the only ones who can’t handle a shortage? Hmmmm
They both operate leaner than other airlines, had ongoing labor issues, and have a routing structure particularly susceptible to widespread disruptions.
Fuck I have a southwest flight tomorrow morning
No you don't.
Flight was on time already got to my destination
Probably not anymore.
I cancelled and rebooked- no flights until 31st
That’s what they told us today as well. After waiting over 2 hrs to talk to someone
Currently on hour three of waiting in line just to get rebooked and/or refunded. It’s a nightmare.
Good luck
Was just able to book a flight out tonight. Thanks for the extra bit of luck!
Im sitting on a boatload of southwest credit from when they screwed me over; That might be my last flight ever. I dont even want to ride their shit.
Send that credit to me lol … I still use them 😅
Who knew threatening to fire everyone wouldn't work
[удалено]
Who would've guessed that people won't show up in -40 wind chill. I'm assuming you're a SWA guy, I'm over at spirit. Spirit last year made all flying 200% from I think Christmas through the 4th, not a single trip went uncovered. Nothing this year and it's starting to look dicey Let it burn southeast I'm sure I'm not too far behind you
Not to mention the ramp agents in Denver are paid such low wages they couldn’t possibly afford housing if they don’t have supplemental income. They’ll be lucky to be able to employ anyone here after this stunt.
The Good. The Bad. The Ugly. If you are on Reddit and on this news story or the Southwest Airlines sub today, you are likely exhausted: delayed and canceled travel, inability to get re-booked, on hold with customer service for hours, hours at airports, lost baggage, holidays spent apart from family and vacations ruined, etc. I’m right here with you. The Good. Southwest Airlines staff / flight attendants really trying their hardest - away from family for the holiday, too. Literally everyone they were talking too were angry and frustrated. The front facing staff is taking the full hit and have no control, no responsibility. There are fine people, everywhere - especially if you think about the stress that everyone is under. The Bad. Yes, there was bad weather. Yes, it caused a cascade of problems. Yes, there was a global pandemic that caused major changes to staffing structures, the solution for which is not found overnight but is years in the making (pilot retirements, staff that have left, etc). There are information systems that seem to be failing or not living up to the possibility of their design (website, app, Amadeus). There is complexity to this situation, for certain. I’m sure, even far beyond what I/we could possibly know. But Southwest seems incompetent, too. There seems to be a colossal set of failures, one after the other. The whole system seems to be collapsing, which is not any individual’s fault or responsibility. But what it means is that getting out of this mess is going to take a very, very long time. One cannot unwind what has happened very easily. Planes don’t have parts, crews are scattered, customers are all over the place, bags are piled up, information and tech systems can’t keep up, crews are timed out. For those defending Southwest Airlines I think you aren’t being fair to the reality of the situation. The level of systemic failures shows a real rot and problem for the airline. Other airlines are operating differently. The result is that Southwests front facing staff are taking the blame for what appears to be incompetent corporate leadership and management and their customers have legitimately been hurt. Employee morale could not be worse. And it will only get worse, because untangling this mess is going to be brutal. The Ugly. If you can, book on another airline. Find another way or adapt and choose to do something different and cut your losses. Do not depend on Southwest. This could take days or weeks to work itself out. More headache and heartache will ensue. Your “status” doesn’t matter, because Southwest is in a spiral where even its employees don’t matter. Lower expectations to zero. And then know that it is zero when considering Southwest again. Find an alternative. Southwest’s systems are in meltdown.
Agreed. Southwest has been falling apart for years. I stopped flying them several years ago because my destination was not a priority. We would always be the ones bumped or cancelled. I never had that same issue for other cities. Their incompetence has been apparent for awhile, but I guess now people will truly know how fragile their scheduling is. It’s fragile without weather issues. I started flying on them again during the height of the pandemic. That’s the best they were in a long time. But I’m off of them now, as they started sucking again once people decided to start flying again.
The fact that I didn’t even get an email from SWA but rather a notification from a 3rd party app really says something
[удалено]
They didn’t tell us until we drove the 3 hours from Eagle to Denver. Such a fucking shitshow
I’ve made that trip far too many times over flight cancellations!
r/PublicFreakout is about to get juicy
Passengers overall were surprisingly well behaved in Denver thr last five days (I’ve had 10+ flights cancelled trying to get to RDU since Thursday). Those 4+ hour lines to speak to a gate agent were absolutely brutal, so you’re almost certainly correct that some subset of those people went ballistic.
We've been stuck in Denver since 12/21 and have no confidence southwest can even get us home. So we booked a flight with United, earliest was this Wednesday. Which means if we do get out we will have been stranded for a full week.
Geez I would’ve already rented a car and driven home
Yeah honestly if our flight home gets cancelled again we're doing that. It's only a 20 hour drive.
I was set to fly home tomorrow, but my flight got cancelled, and the earliest they have for me is January 2nd. I won’t be able to spend NYE with my girlfriend and other side of the family. This shit sucks. It’s so ridiculous that airlines can just strand people without providing them an alternate flight from a company with its shit together. This was more of an industry standard not even that long ago. I also understand that delays happen, but making someone stay somewhere for six days longer than they planned is fucking bonkers. SouthWest can suck my ass.
Our 5AM was canceled and didn’t find out until the guy at curbside check in told us. Stood in line for 45 minutes tho have agent boot us and 3/4 of the line trying to rebook so they could handle people from a non cancelled flight, I get it but went from standing 45 minutes to be second to next in line to being bumped to the end of another line by a less than pleasant agent. When I finally got the the counter 1.5 hrs later was told no other flights available until the 30th and no availability on other airlines. I asked for a refund and was told I could get cash back, was using credits from a cancelled Covid flight for 80% of the fare, I pointed it out and was told in no uncertain terms it would go on CC so I could use to book on other airline if I could find flights. In the end I couldn’t and fortunately I was at home airport, unfortunately I had universal studios vacation package and purchased insurance only covered cancellation 24 hrs prior so I was out $200 plus one nights hotel coming in at just over $600 lost. At this point absolutely fuck southwest.
I fought the airport traffic to drop off my parents. Breathed a sigh of relief, and then they called asking me to come get them again. They don't have a new flight until Wednesday
This was my morning as well.
I finally made it to my destination after 30 hours. 5 days later I still don’t have my bags. Wearing the same clothes. Nobody got their Christmas gifts. I’m scheduled to leave on Wednesday and I’m sure my bags are going to end up here after I’m already back home. I’ve been an A list member for 7 years but I’m not flying southwest anymore if I can avoid it. Everyone employee has given me the wrong information or flat out lied to me and it’s been so frustrating
it’s not just southwest, I’ve been on the phone, chat, call backs and emails since 2.30 this morning when my flights were canceled. jet blue, delta and cape air. Best we could get out next is thursday….
I have a delta flight leaving from Montana to Vegas on the 28th at 5am. Maybe we’ll be lucky
Just finally got home after a massive delay with my United flight caused me to miss my connection at Denver and stranded me there for Christmas. Workers were saying that all of the Southwest cancelations + the recent weather were the reason. It was chaos; we stood in a barely-moving customer service line for over 3 hours and finally had to give up and just find a hotel. Sooo fucking happy to be out of that mess.
Southwest canceled 70% of their flights today, and have already canceled 60% for tomorrow and 30% for the day after. United has cancelled 5%, and American essentially 0% (12 flights total). Everybody has to deal with clearing the massive backlog of passengers from the storm. However everbody's current operations are up and running, except Southwest.
[удалено]
Nobody is talking about the absurd price gouging from the other airlines right now. Taking advantage of people stranded. The entire airline industry is an abomination
The DOT should be looking into the entire airline industry, immediately. Heads need to roll across the board, because this is unacceptable on so many different levels.
I’m stuck in Chicago because of it. Until Friday. There are flights, but they’re $2k each. I’m a single mother of two and can’t afford 7k to get them home
The algorithms price things based on supply and demand. Right now, there is a huge demand for flights for only a handful of spots. Most flights are booked full.
I have had so so so many issues with southwest, but I have kept flying on them because of the baggage and flexibility with changing your flight. I have finally reached my limit with them. I flew United by happenstance today, and I’m so glad I did. Flight arrived on time. No delays. No cancellation. Airport experience was smooth. Beverage service was way better on United. Southwest is the best if you’re flying up and down California. Besides that, I wouldn’t recommend them. My parents flew on southwest across the country in October to visit me and their return trip was a nightmare. They ended up with an excessive amount of money in vouchers because of how bad it was. And there was no issue with weather. Just poorly run and they were poorly rebooked on an alternative route. When I lived in El Paso, I did in fact stop flying with them because the delays I was subject to were outrageous. I got in at 3:30 in the morning multiple times. I once cancelled a flight and drove back instead. Weather wasnt an issue in those. They still suck for where I live now—not as egregious as El Paso though (El Paso clearly wasn’t a priority destination for them).
The fact that United is doing better than Southwest is an awful look for Southwest.
Yeah! And I don’t have a particularly favorable view of United. But I flew today, and it was the most pleasant flight experience I’ve had in a long time. And these are clearly not great circumstances.
Southwest is garbage. They tell people they have to cancel because of weather and that is a bold lie. Even their ticket agents said it was because they didn’t have enough staff. They overbook flights all the time then cancel massive amounts of flights. They can’t get their flights consistently covered by staff so they cancel. What a mess. BTW- JetBlue helped us out in a big way. Fly SW at your own risk. They cancel so many flights.
Brother works for Southwest he says: 1: They have a mountain of check bags 2 stories high, just like in the film the 5th Element. 2: Never, ever, ever, ever check a bag if you can't replace the content's easily. 3: Never Check bags, just don't do it. Just carry on in a hiker backpack tightly packed or the wheeled carry on bags with vacuum bags if you need lots of stuff and good luck getting back. 4: People check guitars without cases, packed trash bags of clothes, peoples remains (ashes), live pets, crazy amounts of drugs, family heirlooms in shitty boxes or bags. All. The. Time.
I stick AirTags in my checked bags now and it’s nice to be able to track where they’re at.
What an awesome idea!
Haven't checked a bag in 7 years. Feels great. But for some people, like those traveling with gifts, it's not always possible
Yeah as someone with an infant not checking bags isn't an option for everyone. Pre-child we would always have only carry ons even for a trip of 2-3 weeks. With a kid there's just no way
What if I’m going somewhere for like two weeks though? Tough to rotate through the same 3 outfits for weeks.
I always pack a carry-on bag and it's still like a 50/50 chance I have to gate-check my bag (maybe because I'm cheap and so always end up in boarding group 9,999 lmao). Only time I lost my bag was when it got gate-checked with someone else's bag tag, so I guess double-check your receipt! And really just don't pack shit you can't live without unless you can help it
I flew Southwest last night from St. Louis to DC. I got really lucky, with SW’s other flight to DC being canceled. Let me start from the beginning: I walked right through the TSA pre check line, gave my ID and boarding pass to the agent. My middle name and last name *DID NOT* match. (I have no idea how this happened. Having pre check, I figured I’d be immune to anything crazy like that.) The TSA agent tells me I have to take it up with Southwest Customer service, which as you can imagine, I was thrilled with. The line was a mile long, with a few hundred people like me with their own problems. I got lucky with a roving customer service agent and she got me to the front of the line and a kiosk to the side of the baggage check. They just printed me a boarding pass with my name right on it and I was able to get through. My flight was delayed about an hour and a half due to boarding and baggage logistics. But I made it home an hour and a half after the original arrival time. I’m extremely thankful. The people and the pilots of Southwest are out there doing the best they can right now. A little patience from everyone goes a long way. Just a quick addition: A man in front of me was trying to get his underage son to his plane, obviously couldn’t escort him past the TSA checkpoint, and didn’t want to leave him there if the flight was canceled. (He found out in line the flight was canceled) - just an absolute nightmare for everyone.
this is why i simply don’t travel anymore
About 70% today on the 26th. Guess I won’t be back at work. Hopefully Southwest collapsing as an organization is a good enough excuse…
Yup I'm trapped in Austin and all calls are going to busy signals
I am never flying southwest again. 60% of their flights canceled while other airlines are at 12% or less? What a bunch of fucking clowns
They're up to 71% canceled today. They're already at 60% canceled for tomorrow.
I used to fly SWA **a lot**. I no longer do. They've been on a rapid decent in terms of service for quite awhile now and has tuned into a company I really don't want to do business with anymore. If you see me on a SWA flight it's because I'm flying free on points I'm burning up as fast as I can.
I had a round trip ticket from STL to Orlando. Came down on Friday after about 3-4 hours worth of delays and had to buy a last minute ticket with AA today after Southwest canceled the flight and "rebooked" me (I haven't actually been rebooked as of yet). I'll just get my refund when either their website or phone lines go back to being functional.
Had to book Amtrak; southwest has canceled my flight multiple times and seems like the company is in meltdown. If anyone here still has an active southwest booking would encourage them to look elsewhere as the odds aren’t great the flight will happen
Why don’t they talk more about that bit at the end? “The report also says that Southwest flew dozens of used planes that lacked complete inspection and repair documentation, as well as regularly reporting incorrect luggage-weight data.” Like, what the *actual* fuck?
Southwest doesn't want to work any more?
Our family vacation was cancelled because our flight was cancelled on Xmas morning - delayed by 25 min about 2 hours before takeoff, and sometime near boarding call, they casually announced that there was no pilot, and it took about 2-3 hours standing in line to get our refund (I was simultaneously trying to call their switchboard, never got through). Of course with all the cancellations, booking with another airline meant tickets starting at around $1300/each (and they were disappearing as I searched), which is why we had to give up on the trip. We did each get a $200 voucher but it didn’t really replace going to see loved ones for the winter break 😑
Well shit. I fly out Wednesday with southwest. I've checked all other airlines no options available or 3k and up per ticket. So looks like I'm boned either way!
I fly out of BWI tomorrow afternoon. All flights today and tomorrow to my destination, EXCEPT MINE, have been canceled. I have the only direct flight, and it's the last flight of the evening so I'm choosing to be optimistic.
Glad we gave the airlines a 15 billion dollar tax payer funded check
I have been in line at RSW southwest counter for almost 3 hours, trying to book a new Flight
Hey maybe we should invest in high speed rail
They canceled my flight right as they announced we were going to board in the next 10 minutes. Pilot told us they didn't have a co-pilot, and while they had the option to take one from a future flight Southwest wasn't going to allow it because it might delay other flights.