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FYI - Southwest violated Federal DOT regulations with regards to Flight 2435 DEN-TPA Dec 21 2022

Cornbreadx1
Explorer C

As a previously held A-list preferred business flyer and holder of two companion passes, I am reluctant to have to post this, but the public needs to know.

 

On Dec 21st, 2022, flying out of Denver to Tampa, 175 passengers aboard flight 2435 were held on the tarmac for well over 3.5 hours.  I have text message strings to show approximate time of boarding and approximate time of returning to gate.  The flight was originally delayed to depart at 5:45.  We ended up boarding the plane around that time, settling in (before the weather hit that evening) at about 6:00 pm.  And then the wait began.

 

The baggage crew was having problems loading the baggage onto the plane.  That caused a delay in leaving the gate till a little after 8:00 pm.  Why did it take so long you may ask?  Well I had to contact a friend who is a southwest pilot and it turns out that their internal systems crash began that evening.  The baggage crew had to manually check all the bag tags to make sure they were going on the correct flight.  This is what took so long.  

 

Once we departed the gate sometime around 8:30pm, we waited approximately 45 mins to go through the De-icing area.  After that... a slow and arduous crawl across the tarmac for another 30 mins before being relayed that the De-icing service had failed, and that we would be returning to the gate.  Now almost 10:00 pm, we get close to the gate just to sit there and wait some more.  Why?  Because there were no ground crew to man the gate to have us return.  Another 30 mins goes by before we finally get to the gate, and then another 30 mins goes by before they open the door and let us off the plan.  In that time, the service crew offered a grand total of 6 people food and drink.  The other 169 of us got nothing.  I was sitting in row 2 and received nothing.

 

Federal DOT regulations states that any domestic flight that is delayed on the tarmac with passengers aboard must provide food, drink, and the ability to move about the cabin if the flight is delayed 3 hours or more.  For international flights, 4 hours.  Nary a drop nor a crumb was offered to the passengers of this flight.  After 9 calls now and several hours of being on hold with Southwest, Southwest has yet to address this issue or even admit to it.  This is abysmal and reprehensible.  

 

What makes it worse?  The fact that the system crashed, caused the delays, and because the delays lead to weather related issues, Southwest has taken the stance of referring to it as a "weather delay," absolving any and all responsibility for their failures and issues.  Convenient.  


I walked out of the terminal at 12:35 am on Dec 22nd, to head to American Airlines to board a flight I purchased through Priceline.  That flight departed a little late, but still departed, amidst the snow and weather, and arrived in Miami that morning.  As I walked through C terminal, I can't even count the number of people that were crying because the next available rebooking flights were Dec 23rd.  Those flights, on Dec 23rd, were subsequently cancelled for most, if not all of the passengers on the multitude of initial Southwest flight cancellations on Dec 21st.  Many of those passengers were stranded in DEN for 4 days or more.  And what has Southwest done in response?  Well... funny you would ask that.

 

I received an Email from Dan Behrens, Proactive Customer Communications, on Dec 22nd regarding this flight issue.  In this email, Dan says, and I quote:

 

"I’m so sorry for the lengthy delay you experienced in Denver last night, due to inclement weather and Air Traffic Control directives. I know the situation became even more frustrating as conditions did not improve and we found it necessary to gate return and cancel Flight #2435. I hope you will accept my sincere apology for the overall experience.


We are a Company built on serving others through the delivery of safe and reliable air transportation. Your continued patronage is important to us, and we hope you will continue to give us the privilege of welcoming you onboard. In that spirit, I’m sending you a LUV Voucher (in a separate e-mail, which will arrive within fourteen days) that can be applied as a form of payment toward a new Southwest reservation. We look forward to seeing you again in the near future.


Kind regards,



Dan Behrens
Proactive Customer Communications
Southwest Airlines
2432 Wyman Street
Dallas, TX 75235"

 

I have yet to receive this voucher.  Called Southwest twice, they have no record of this or can't find it.  They have now referred me to customer relations to deal with this and it will take up to 30 days to resolve.  More delays... more disappointment.  

 

This does raise a question though - in all the time that I have flown Southwest (years now and many many flights), when Southwest cancels for weather, it has never offered a refund or voucher, just a rebooking.  Southwest has also never wrote me from customer relations to offer a voucher for weather.  So... I may be drawing my own parallel here, but it seems that Southwest is hiding the fact that their internal software system which crashed, may have crashed before Dec 24th, when the CEO sent out emails to travelers stranded, subsequently after the government said it plans to investigate the delays caused to passengers of Southwest flights in and around this time.  Thus, I can confirm through a current employee of Southwest and my own experiences, Southwest is lying to everyone traveling during that time frame.

 

I plan to personally submit a complaint to the Federal DOT regarding this issue #1.  #2, I encourage anyone traveling during that time frame who was left stranded due to "weather issues," to do the same.  This is unacceptable that 1000's of people were stranded and Southwest is choosing to not only ignore the situation, but to also lie about the situation and dupe their customers into thinking this was all a "convenient weather delay."  I argue that by saying this:  "How as I able to book a flight that evening through American Airlines and leave DEN if the weather was that bad?  And if 4 inches of snow at an airport that constantly is subjected to inclement weather cripples an airline service, shouldn't that airline service rethink their protocols and procedures?"  

 

However, this was more than an inclement weather scenario wasn't it Southwest?  And what about the Federal DOT violation?  If we, as customers, tamper with smoke devices in lavatories, we are subject to being fined.  Where is your punishment for your violation?  If you don't address it, it will be in the form of people going to other airlines and leaving Southwest.  Think about that very carefully because I doubt that the last thing you need right now is a federal investigation regarding this scenario.

 

Thanks for all that have read this and hopefully you will act accordingly to this information.  I know I plan to.

 

Joey

8 REPLIES 8

Re: FYI - Southwest violated Federal DOT regulations with regards to Flight 2435 DEN-TPA Dec 21 2022

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

This is a customer to customer forum, if you want Southwest to respond to your comments contact them directly. Use the contact us link at the bottom of this page and send a message. 

 

--TheMiddleSeat

The culture at SW has evolved to blaming the customer.

Cswilliam
Explorer C

Don’t lecture your customers about communications,  obviously the orobmem is this man is NOT being responded to.  Fix that - don’t lecture him.

 

 

Re: The culture at SW has evolved to blaming the customer.

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

@Cswilliam I thought I made it pretty clear without "lecturing"...  Southwest does not respond to customers here. This is a customer to customer forum.

 

If you want Southwest to respond to your comments, individuals will need to contact Southwest directly. Using the contact us link at the bottom of this page and sending a message is an easy way to do that.

 

Have a lovely day, 

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: The culture at SW has evolved to blaming the customer.

floridaguy
Aviator C

You can comfortably ignore "themiddleseat" as he is not a Southwest employee.

 

Your views are welcome here anytime.  

Re: The culture at SW has evolved to blaming the customer.

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

@floridaguy what about anything i said suggests views are not welcome? This person was implying I was a Southwest employee "lecturing" people. I kindly reminded the poster that Southwest does provide support through this community as they incorrectly believed and my original suggestion to the original OP to contact Southwest directly for assistance was accurate and informative. 

 

Again, @floridaguy if you are going to post here please be accurate, informative, and actually helpful. You continue to fail miserably at all those things.

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: The culture at SW has evolved to blaming the customer.

dfwskier
Aviator A

For maybe the first time in history, floridaguy is right. Your views are welcome here.

 

But if you want to actually accomplish something other than venting, then themiddleseat is right. You'll need to  complain directly to the airline.

Re: The culture at SW has evolved to blaming the customer.

bec102896
Aviator A

@floridaguy 

 

I have a serious question for you

 

 what brought you to the community? Was your flight late and you found this? Did you want to announce you’re a preboard passenger? Did you actually have a question about SW? I see you joined in 2021 so I’m just curious what brought you here 

Re: FYI - Southwest violated Federal DOT regulations with regards to Flight 2435 DEN-TPA Dec 21 2022

bec102896
Aviator A

i have received several emails from proactive Customer relations after a gate return, long maintenance delay, cancellation this is southwest going above and beyond. 

I had a delta flight back in summer of 2015 boarded in ATL the AC broke while we were waiting to take off it was very hot we went back to the gate sat on the plane for 4 hours no water no food and a storm in the middle of the maintenance mess when I wrote in to delta they told me because 45min of the delay was weather they didn’t care and because we were at the gate the 3 hour timer didn’t apply after my DOT complaint I got a $50 voucher which was an insult. 

 

unfortunately these things happen when you went back to the gate did you ask to get off? Did you ask for food?

 

just send an email to southwest and hopefully they can make it right for you and with that proactive customer relations email do a search in your email for the subject: Here's your Southwest LUV Voucher!

 

in my experience those usually arrive 1-2 days after the proactive customer relations email arrives