San Jose Hell this past weekend...

[martinkoren]

I am a 25 year a-lister and chose to go same day standby on 30 july from SJC to PHX.  I spent 9 hours in the airport, got bumped off of 3 flights by employees when I was number 1 on the list.  The kicker for me was when the gate agent at 33 in San Jose told me he didn't care if i was a stand by, the flight was full and he wasn't adding anyone.  Pretty funny that the flight wasn't even there yetand then they offered a 400 voucher for someone to get off the plane since there was a pilot that got ahead of me but the flight was oversold.

I tried to buy seats on earlier flights but it seems that every time I went to do that, the seats were gone because SWA was moving people around to cover your butts because of delays. 

So call it a perfect storm or what you will, I encountered rudeness, nastiness and an overall lack of professionalism from SWA. If I had a choice I'd dump y'all, but i can't throw away 25 years of flying. 

How about a real customer service desk at the airport that isn't tied to a gate and has people there to actually answer questions?

I know this is a tough one, but maybe, just maybe revenue passengers first? And if you are going to do that, let's not have employees throwing a fit at the gate demanding that they are more  important than the customers. It was a crappy weekend SWA........

[TheMiddleSeat]

You actually acknowledged the root of the problem. If Southwest needs to move employees around for operational issues they are most definitely going to get on before any other standby passenger and may even require bumping paying customers. Cancel a flight for lack of crew or get you on a standby flight? Hmm, I wonder which will happen.

You're welcome to submit your feedback directly to Southwest, use the contact us link at the bottom of this page and send a message. 

--TheMiddleSeat

[martinkoren]

I already have sent a note directly to them with no response. Seems they are up to their butts with alligators and have a hard enough time keeping their scheduled flights going.  Unfortunately in the current environment, customer service is not a priority.

[bec102896]

That pilot probably was deadheading to catch up with his schedule. 

[SWFlyer007]

@bec102896  explain deadheading.  

[maryh1959]

Deadheading is when someone is traveling without pay to go to another place to get to where they have to work

[SWFlyer007]

@martinkoren 25 years, you have me by several years.  Here is one thing I've done, "WHEN" I have put a complaint on her, I always get names and post them.  Not that it solved the issue any better, or faster, but I feel it gets back to somebody who cares.  I don't blame anyone as it seems to be what's going on and I've been bumped as well, not fun.  I've sent my detailed issue in a letter (way before email) and an email after technology became the norm, and have been compensated each time, it just took time.  Yes, you want it now, I understand that, and as paying customers we deserve some decent response time, but I've said this over and over again, we still haven't gotten out of what COVID got us in to.  Excuse, no, but I've learned to be just a bit more patient since then.  Maybe it was a good lesson for me who use to blow off at the very minute I got irritated.