Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Flight Cancelled!

Mariek92
Explorer C

My family and I were scheduled to fly home to Tampa from Chicago Midway Airport this last Sunday, April 7, 2019. At 8:50 AM Sunday I got a text from Southwest that our 4:40 pm flight was canceled.( Flight 3282.)No reason was given. The text just said for us to reschedule the flight ourselves. We decided to fly home on American Airlines as we didn’t want to rebook with Southwest and have our flight cancelled again. Southwest has been canceling many flights due to the Max 8 grounding, but do they have to do this at the last minute? My husband called Southwest about this cancellation several days later and was told it was canceled due to rain which was untrue. There was no rain in Chicago or Tampa at departure or arrival time for this flight. We are very disappointed in Southwest! They were our favorite airline before this happened. All they offered us was a $75.00 voucher and a refund on the flight they canceled. We had to spend almost two thousand dollars to get home, including an extra hotel night.

9 REPLIES 9

Re: Flight Cancelled!

SWDigits
Aviator A
@Mariek92 as another customer my guess is that you would have been able to find another same day Southwest flight from Midway to Tampa without any issues so I'm not sure why you didn't try. I pulled up the Southwest flight options for this coming Sunday and I see a total of 16 flights from Midway to Tampa (and that's only for the flights that depart at 11 a.m. or later because you mentioned you received a notification at 8:50 a.m.), to include 4 nonstop flights.

The refund for the cancelled flight makes sense though Southwest seems generous in offering a voucher given the circumstances you described.

Customer | Home airport DCA

Re: Flight Cancelled!

Mariek92
Explorer C

We were not able to leave on earlier flights than our original flight. Also, we needed to have a good boarding position, not c60 or whatever is the last position, as we were traveling with 3 family members. You can't get a decent boarding position less than 8-10  hours before the flight.

Re: Flight Cancelled!

dfwskier
Aviator A

@Mariek92 wrote:

My family and I were scheduled to fly home to Tampa from Chicago Midway Airport this last Sunday, April 7, 2019. At 8:50 AM Sunday I got a text from Southwest that our 4:40 pm flight was canceled.( Flight 3282.)No reason was given. The text just said for us to reschedule the flight ourselves. We decided to fly home on American Airlines as we didn’t want to rebook with Southwest and have our flight cancelled again. Southwest has been canceling many flights due to the Max 8 grounding, but do they have to do this at the last minute? My husband called Southwest about this cancellation several days later and was told it was canceled due to rain which was untrue. There was no rain in Chicago or Tampa at departure or arrival time for this flight. We are very disappointed in Southwest! They were our favorite airline before this happened. All they offered us was a $75.00 voucher and a refund on the flight they canceled. We had to spend almost two thousand dollars to get home, including an extra hotel night.


Sorry to hear that your flight was cancelled.

 

Weather can cause problems for a flight even if the weather is someplace other than your departure or arrival cities.

 

If weather causes problems in the city your plane was supposed to come from, then maybe it couldn't get to your departure city - thus causing a cancellation. 

Re: Flight Cancelled!

Mariek92
Explorer C

Yes, I understand that. However, the cancellation wasn't given a reason until several days later which is suspect. We called Southwest the day of the cancellation and they didn't have a reason for the flight being canceled at that time.

Re: Flight Cancelled!

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@Mariek92 wrote:

Yes, I understand that. However, the cancellation wasn't given a reason until several days later which is suspect. We called Southwest the day of the cancellation and they didn't have a reason for the flight being canceled at that time.


The person you talked to just didn't know. They aren't creating cancelation records after the fact - it would probably to late do to this now, but you can check this yourself if you use a site like flightradar24, flight aware, flight view, etc. to see where your plane was coming from in many cases, and likely the search results would show that it was coming through weather that prevented its arrival in Chicago. (This doesn't work 100%, but will be a good indicator, especially if the flight was continuing through Chicago which many flights are. Otherwise on the same day it may be possible to piece things together based on the arrival gate but this would be tough to reconstruct days later.)

 

I hope you can accept the voucher that they have offered and fly Southwest again. 

 

 

 

 

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

Re: Flight Cancelled!

Lmkel68
Adventurer C

I hope this does not happen to me.  I booked my flight last year for 4/24

Re: Flight Cancelled!

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@Lmkel68 wrote:

I hope this does not happen to me.  I booked my flight last year for 4/24


Go to the website now and check your flight to see if it says "sold out" - if they are still selling tickets then it is a great sign.

 

Then if it was sold out, it is probably just sold out, but there seems to be a small portion of flights that are still potentially flying that aren't canceled yet but could be impacted if a plane isn't available.

 

This probably overstates the risk if it did show sold out online - plenty of flights are really just busy routes. But in case they are still selling tickets you should be more at ease.

 

It could be murky though with your flight just weeks away that it really will be sold out.

 

 

 

 

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

Re: Flight Cancelled!

Mariek92
Explorer C

Yes, that’s good advice. It seems like they are only canceling the flights that aren’t full. I wish they weren’t doing this at the last minute. The other airlines with the MAX have been able to avoid this- Southwest could too. I got a letter from Southwest’s President today saying they are trying to do better. It was probably sent to those who had a cancelled flight.

Re: Flight Cancelled!

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@Mariek92 wrote:

Yes, that’s good advice. It seems like they are only canceling the flights that aren’t full. I wish they weren’t doing this at the last minute. The other airlines with the MAX have been able to avoid this- Southwest could too. I got a letter from Southwest’s President today saying they are trying to do better. It was probably sent to those who had a cancelled flight.


It was sent to everyone, I also got it but have not had a canceled flight.

 

Actually I meant the opposite on the flight status - if Southwest is still selling seats on a flight then then it's clearly not slated for a later evaluation.

 

If there was a flight out there in limbo, they may put the selling of additional seats on "hold" while they figure it out.

 

 

 

 

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