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1st flight of the day canceled again

Jeff1844
Explorer C

I fly LAX to OAK at least once a week on the first flight of the day.  This morning it was canceled again, for the fifth time this year.  According to customer service, it was due to storms in Oakland.

 

I have some real issues with how this situation was handled.  First, the weather excuse is not the truth, and only makes a crappy situation worse.  I suspect that the flight was fairly empty, and someone made an economic decision to scrap the flight.  Bad enough call, but then I was not automatically booked on the next flight, and when I rebooked myself my boarding number went from a18 to c3.  

 

So now I'm already rejuggling my meetings and have to spend even more time waiting for my bag at baggage claim.  

 

Calling customer care is useless, and there is no email address  in the "contact us" page, so I'll make my unhappiness public.  What's going on Southwest - I've been a loyal customer for years but am feeling extremely un"luv"ed at the moment...

 

 

4 REPLIES 4

Re: 1st flight of the day canceled again

rtbarron
Frequent Flyer A

Sorry to hear about the glitch in your travel plans.

Did customer service say it was due to storms in Oakland, or weather? Bay area airports are notorious for fog which causes air traffic control ground stops and ground delay programs. The temperature/dew point spread in Oakland right now is only two degrees which means that fog was likely earlier. I can assure you that flights are not cancelled just because they're empty, especially early morning flights. The aircraft and crew are still needed somewhere else throughout the day. Cancelling any flight disrupts the network and is never desirable.

Are you A-List? If so, you can board at the end of the A line and do not have to wait until C3 to board. Also, even though there is not an e-mail address on the Contact Us page, there is a way to contact Southwest by e-mail on the page.

Re: 1st flight of the day canceled again

Jeff1844
Explorer C

Yes, quite clearly said "storms".   

Re: 1st flight of the day canceled again

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@Jeff1844 wrote:

I fly LAX to OAK at least once a week on the first flight of the day.  This morning it was canceled again, for the fifth time this year.  According to customer service, it was due to storms in Oakland.

 

I have some real issues with how this situation was handled.  First, the weather excuse is not the truth, and only makes a crappy situation worse.  I suspect that the flight was fairly empty, and someone made an economic decision to scrap the flight.  Bad enough call, but then I was not automatically booked on the next flight, and when I rebooked myself my boarding number went from a18 to c3.  

 

So now I'm already rejuggling my meetings and have to spend even more time waiting for my bag at baggage claim.  

 

Calling customer care is useless, and there is no email address  in the "contact us" page, so I'll make my unhappiness public.  What's going on Southwest - I've been a loyal customer for years but am feeling extremely un"luv"ed at the moment...

 

 


This is a tough one - I also don't expect that they would be canceling a flight early in the morning, especially if that plane would be planning to be somewhere else later in the day. At the same time, there must be some good statistics on when not to fly to Oakland in the morning, and perhaps this route is prone to cancelation. 

 

Do you know if the plane is a "shuttle" that goes back and forth from LAX to OAK and back? I think that Southwest would have to plan ahead for this route to be subject to fog if that was actually the reason and if it occurs often.

 

Otherwise I'd have to take it at face value that there were storms in the area or between the cities that prevented a safe route. 

 

I'd recommend to try and leave some time to talk to the staff at the LAX airport to get a better feel for this route if you are taking it once a week and having trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.

Re: 1st flight of the day canceled again

dfwskier
Aviator A

@DancingDavidE wrote:

@

 

 


This is a tough one - I also don't expect that they would be canceling a flight early in the morning, especially if that plane would be planning to be somewhere else later in the day. At the same time, there must be some good statistics on when not to fly to Oakland in the morning, and perhaps this route is prone to cancelation. 

 

Do you know if the plane is a "shuttle" that goes back and forth from LAX to OAK and back? I think that Southwest would have to plan ahead for this route to be subject to fog if that was actually the reason and if it occurs often.

 

Otherwise I'd have to take it at face value that there were storms in the area or between the cities that prevented a safe route. 

 

I'd recommend to try and leave some time to talk to the staff at the LAX airport to get a better feel for this route if you are taking it once a week and having trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Well, the flight does continue from O akland To Atlanta to Reagan National to Midway. So cancelling the flight puts Southwest in the position of having to find another plane to continue that route out of Oakland. So I doubt Southwest would cancel the flight if it really did not have to do so.

 

I can only access 2 months of flight details, and Southwest 1073 LAX/OAK has been cancelled twice in the last two months - June 19 and this morning. 

 

Unfortunately, flights do get cancelled. My guess is that cancelling an early morning LAX/OAK flight due to low numbers of passengers is unlikely due to the disruption to the rest of the routing scheduled for the plane for the rest of the day.