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Southwest Airlines Community

Flight Cancellations

blakemcgregor14
Explorer C

Is there anything I can do for losses incurred due to Southwest's last minute cancellations? Today I had a flight that was cancelled less than 3 hours before it's scheduled departure for no reason other than there were enough seats sold. Of course I get the option of rescheduling a different flight, but their options were severely limited. As such, I got stuck on a late evening flight (versus and early morning flight) which had led to a series of unfortunate events. Now I have a missed appointment with a contractor in addition to having to pay for an extra day of car rental, dog boarding, airport parking, and more. Does Southwest airlines just get to make these last minute random decisions and then get off Scott free for is there anything I can do about this?

3 REPLIES 3

Re: Flight Cancellations

TheMiddleSeat
Aviator A

Let me say this loud and clear... Southwest does NOT cancel flights because not enough seats are sold. This is one of the oldest, most incorrect rumors that pops up occasionally. 

 

You may be able to get a voucher for the inconvenience. Contact Customer Relations

I would suggest writing and provide some brief details about the situation.

 

--TheMiddleSeat

Re: Flight Cancellations

CupCrusher40
Frequent Flyer B

In poster's defense maybe it was a flight attendant seat oversell? He did not type not enough he said enough seats. Could have been the hurricane

Re: Flight Cancellations

chgoflyer
Aviator A

@TheMiddleSeat wrote:

Let me say this loud and clear... Southwest does NOT cancel flights because not enough seats are sold. This is one of the oldest, most incorrect rumors that pops up occasionally. 

 

You may be able to get a voucher for the inconvenience. Contact Customer Relations

I would suggest writing and provide some brief details about the situation.

 

--TheMiddleSeat


 

Well... kinda. It's actually a bit more complicated than that.

 

In IROPS situations Southwest's network planning staff will indeed choose the less booked flight vs the more full one when deciding what gets cut and what does not. The idea is to minimize the amount of passengers who are disrupted. Other considerations include where planes and crew are needed most following recovery.

 

That said, this doesn't sound like the OPs situation (no IROPS).