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Southwest Airlines Community

Wanna get Away? Yesterday, we sure did!

cmainz
Employee
Employee

We know the last two days certainly have been challenging for you. Murphy’s law was an unwelcome Passenger yesterday when we had two, separate situations that affected our operations and web site accessibility. Through it all, our Employees did their very best to serve you, but we understand that many of you have had frustrating moments.

 

Our first issue came yesterday morning when we flipped the switch for our All-New Rapid Rewards program. Throughout the day, southwest.com had intermittent issues regarding functionality and accessibility. We had a Command Center in place and our folks were ready to immediately spring into action to address and fix the "bugs" as they were discovered. Their work continued all day and through the night, and they were able to implement some fixes that have helped get us back up and running online today.

 

As Murphy and his law would have it, in a completely unrelated event yesterday evening, our primary telecommunications provider experienced an outage that affected the network connectivity at some of our airports and call centers nationwide. This resulted in long lines of Customers at many airports. Immediately, an emergency command center effort was mounted to find a solution to get the connectivity repaired. The safety and security of our flights, Customers, and Employees remained our focus as we worked to minimize the impact to our Customers and our operation. The outage affected our operation for approximately 2.5 hours.

 

We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and frustration you experienced the last two days.  To our fans, followers, and Customers, we know you expect great Customer Service, and that’s our expectation too.  Yesterday wasn’t our best day, but today is looking better.  We hope to see you on a Southwest flight soon.

 

114 Comments
Dianne_Davis
Explorer C
Chris - are you kidding!? This isn't a "day" problem. I am still in a holding pattern as far as being able to book flights ony my account or much less use a RR ticket. You guys used to do things so well. But this is a record-setting service failure by any standard!! My lesson learned - - never, but ever be this loyal to an airline again. I need Jet Blue to come to Tulsa so I can still go to my handy, small airports in big cities. I wrote them yesterday and asked for their ETA to my fair city! Right now - it can't come too soon. Well - you wanted people talking about your new RR. And you got it!!! Twitter and Facebook are SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh-so disappointed!
Noble_McIntyre
Explorer C
Nothing works. I've called 50 times and get hung up on every time.
Jan_smith
Explorer C
The inequity I see in the system is that people who fly Business (probably on the company nickel) will earn big points. However, when they spend those points (probably for their personal vacations) they can pick from the low, Wanna Get Away fares. The pressure on these low fares will be greater as these Big Point folks will have big points to spend and spend -- they can more often compete for the low fare seats. I think they should have made it so Business points should have to be spend on Business seats. Oh well, no one said life is "fare." You watch, the low fare seats will go quicker and those of us who can't afford the higher fares will have to turn elsewhere, like Virgin Atlantic. I am not feeling the LUV! The original beauty of SWA was the eqalitarian, easy to fly nature of the company. Now, the new point system is the only thing about SWA that is going to be NUTS. They would have been better off to lower their fares and phase out Rapid Rewards. They should change the name to Richest Rewards.
Larry_DiTizio
Explorer C
I used to love SWA. Sorry but the "new" rapid rewards program has made things more complicated instead of better. In addition flights between Indianapolis and Baltimore have gone up 45%!!! I may go back to United, I do have a choice!
John_Burley
Explorer C
Trying to change a flight online, and it has an error message telling me to call. I call, get a warning message about how long I will wait, and them BEEP, it disconnects. That has happened for nearly 20 hours now. Please fix things.
michael_loeffle
Explorer C
Tried calling twice today [after waiting on hold 3/4 for 1 hour only too get disconnected ] reservations # still rings busy. Trying to book rewards ticket with reward from old program now for over 1 hour. I think southwest no longer stands out among the others in terms of customer service and ease to do business with.
Blair_Barklow
Explorer C
Chris I think this problem runs far deeper than what you are communicating. I surely hope this is not because your IT folks do no understand how bad things are. I spent more time on the phone than in the air by a factor of 2, trying to fly from OAK to SLC to visit UofU with our high school senior. Neither the online system or call center staff can see the relationship between flights and fliers using a confirmation number as of Saturday evening. Call center agents have to get credit card payments to associate flights with confirmation numbers and passengers. I understand you cannot back out of this change because of the new rewards program. I don't completely buy that your call center blockage was carrier problems, it appeared to be intermittent and consistent with capacity issues. I'll be looking for an announcement to customers when corrections are in place. Until then, SWA will have to be the last choice, unless the other airlines find a way impact customers and customer service operations more than you have.
Emily_Cutrer
Explorer C
After a week of trying, at least twice a day, I still can't log on to my RR account without the error message. The "OOPS" is more than a little irritating, and this is more than an "OOPS." Please let your customers know what's going on. The technology is bad; the communication is horrible.
Lewis_Boore
Explorer C
Your IT/ website is now absolutely ridiculous, especially when comared to other airlines'! And over the last 4 days bad has gone to absolutely horrific. I depend on you for weekly flights. Now, it takes me 3-4x to enter, and I only "hope" that it ent through with my RR number. I am about to move my weekly trips to Delta or United. It will "cost" me 2 hours in flight time, however at least I can depend on their IT department and customer service. HINT: Your leadership might want to actually USE the website....wow....B-A-D!!
Jackie_Caplinge
Explorer C
I have flown SW for years and appreciated the simplicity, light-hearted rides, easy on, easy off-actually the fastest airline around for loading and unloading...it just made my travels so easy and my days less stressful. My company will not pay the extra fees to get preferential treatment. Those business travelers whose companies will pay, generally rode the with the other carriers. BUT NOW... you're trying to act like the other carriers, charging for special seating, complicating the RR program, etc. to the point that half of the riders now ACT like they are riding on one of the OTHER carriers...placing coats and hats in overheads, trying to save seats, fumbling around getting on and off...you're quickly loosing the advantages you once touted. I understand that business is about making money and thus sustainability of the business and jobs it provides. I get it. But you need to decide what kind of company you are going to be, and how important 'larger' profits are verses just a healthy business model. It's all about making choices, and as you make yours, we, the long-time, steadfast customers will be forced to make ours. After all, what are the advantages of riding with SW now? Bags travel free? Most of us weekly business travelers are not the ones traveling with multiple 50 LB bags, its a small briefcase and a light weight 2-3 day travel bag. Thanks for listening!
jtighe
Explorer C
I have waited for a week to use the new site.. have had several problems.. I tried to change a companion pass reservation. I changed mine first than tried to change my wife's.. Got an ewrror message.. Companion pass changes now have to be done over the telephone not online. This was not the way it was done in the old system.. I had booked about 20 flights during the month of March and April . all of the reservations are no longer in my account..This is a pain trying to find the reservations numbers to check the flights in.. These problems need to be fixed.. I dont like being on hold for 30 minutes to make a minor change that should be easy Also you cannot get a Southwest Visa Premier card until April 1st..per chase bank
Emily_Cutrer
Explorer C
Still can't get on. Tried to "contact customer service," and, guess what, I got the same error message I received when I tried to log on to my rapid rewards account! Will someone please contact me and let me know when I can access my RR account? I'm tired of checking the website and getting an error message day after day and holding, holding, holding on the phone.
Pelle_Svensson
Explorer C
Used to like Southwest for multiple reasons: easy to book, good RR program, good service on flights (incl two checked bags, wish more people did it) But now I'm getting frustrated. I have not been able to login to my RR site since the change a month ago. Spent several hours in phone wait line and calls. Still no solution. Worst of all: no real feedback on any of my requests for solutions. Pure ignorance. My patience in soon running out.
Steve_Rabin
Explorer C
For some reason my Hilton hotel stays do not show up on my SWA rewards account. I've faxed details to the different fax numbers recommended by airline staff, but get no acknowledgment that my faxes have even been received. The reservation staff say they can't help and I need to speak to customer service, but their phone gave a busy signal the 10 times I've tried calling over the last 3 weeks. If this is broken, what else is broken? A responsive customer service # would make a huge difference to my decision to continue flying LUV.