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Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

jkellar12
Explorer B

Over past couple of days I updated a quick spread sheet. It’s percent of total cancellations of southwest over southwest plus American united and delta.  I update this spread sheet in the afternoon so if anything totals for every airline could be higher. I chose those 3 because they have national reach like southwest. Less prone to skew based on georgraphy (aka weather). 

 

basically I communicated  this customer service and she goes well we cancelled other flights in the north east and I replied but yes others did not at the same rate. Blank answer.

 

yes I know they legally aren’t doing anything. I have no recourse and I idiotly booked flights until September and can’t get a refund. It’s more a frustrated long time loyal southwest fan that is upset they prefer the short term bottom line instead of decreasing flight schedule and making sure they have extra planes. Yes they are point to point but not as much as they used to be. They don’t call them hubs but essentially mdw, vegas, Dallas love are hubs in practice 

 

luckily southwest never practiced this but this is a system wide issue with planes that is similar to overbooking an individual flight where they do have to pay compensation like other airlines used. 

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

SWDigits
Aviator A

@jkellar12 wrote:

I update this spread sheet in the afternoon so if anything totals for every airline could be higher.


I went back and checked, that's the case -- the numbers I see for Tuesday are higher than what you listed...

 


Customer | Home airport DCA

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@jkellar12 wrote:

I tried to ask for a refund for all my future flights but by the letter of the law all tickets are non-refundable even if they can't deliver the service.

 

You should get your money back for this trip that was canceled if you didn't end up flying Southwest, but sounds like you did eventually fly on a rescheduled plane and/or got some LUV? They won't refund your future trips, unless those also end up being canceled. 

 

I also had a rough week last week at EWR and LGA, but it wasn't just Southwest in those cases, LGA was packed trying to leave last Thursday well past 11 p.m. 

 

They could definitely use a few more gates there. One issue that they might have at the NY-area locations in particular is capacity. There aren't any "extra planes" waiting around and little ability to reshuffle the schedule if a jet gets stuck there or can't land. Available crew is another issue. 

 

 

 

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

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

jkellar12
Explorer B

Yes all New York airports are congested. Same with Chicago and almost every other major airport. Delays are more than expected and cancellations do happen.  The interesting and alarming statistic is the amount of cancellations southwest has compared to the other major airlines that use the same exact airports in aggregate.  4-5% cancellations compared to 0-2% according to FlightAware. The other airlines tend to eventually take off. Southwest does not. That seems like they are overbooking their actual flight capacity. 

 

Essentially they honor their flight eventually taking off way less than any other major airline.  Sad because the actual front line employees at southwest are generally awesome.  It’s their corporate office who designs a flight schedule that isn’t obtainable. Can’t even use the spirt excuse that they charge cheaper fairs. For most part out of Chicago they are notably more expensive than the legacy airlines

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

djmeyers
Explorer C

Our flight was cancelled out of Newark (to Austin). We arrived at the airport at 5:30 a.m. by Uber from Brooklyn and learned at the counter that the flight was canceled. It had been canceled while we were en route to the airport.

This meant we had to rebook. This was on a Thursday and we could not get a flight until Saturday which meant we had to return to Brooklyn, rebook a hotel and start all over again.

We were offered no compensation. We were informed that since the flight was canceled by "the tower" Southwest had no liability for our losses.

This was all disappointing.

We did look for other flights on other airlines but the cost was prohibitive. We were offered vouchers for future flights if we canceled completely.

When we arrived on Saturday, it was obvious a LOT of people had been reassigned as the line for the counter snaked around twice. I must compliment the Southwest counter staff though for being positive and moving the line along as fast as humanly possible. I expected an hour wait and it was only around a half-hour.

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

NicoleAshley
Employee
Employee

We're so sorry for the frustration, @djmeyers. As a peer-to-peer support forum, we aren't equipped to assist you here, but we encourage you to reach out to us via the options in the link below.

 

https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html?clk=GFOOTER-CUSTOMER-CONTACT-US

 

Thanks!

Nicole
Community Manager

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

DfDrPepper_23
Frequent Flyer C

@jkellar12  I am amazing to see the charts that you posted. I know this posting is few months old, and am I glad that I can see the chart to educate myself and the others, to explain based on what is and what was going on. I have always had some struggle and with your tools, I have learned something from you.

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

ffflyer
Frequent Flyer B

Why not book on a more reliable airline and get your money back from SW on the future tickets when those flights are delayed? You take a chance that they will be on time but it looks like a slim chance.

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

jksobonya
Aviator A

I don't think people are very aware just how much Southwest relies on the 737 MAX 8. Southwest had 34 of those planes in operation before the grounding - the most of any airline in the world. So of course, Southwest is being impacted the most by the grounding and not having those planes in service. Cancellations and delays are going to happen because they are stretched thin with the remaining plans that they have in service. 

 

With that said, I fly Southwest frequently (not enough to get A list, but I fly about 1/2 that, around 10-12 roundtrip flights a year) out of PHL and have never had any major problems where I couldn't get to my destination. PHL is a rather large airport though, and I can understand cancellations happening more frequently at smaller airports. 

 

Still - I find it hard to believe that rebooking on Southwest would have been more expensive than the $1200 you rebooked ... how could they not have any alternatives? Where were you flying out of? 

 

--Jessica

Re: Flight cancelled twice and cost me a fortune!

Obmed11
Explorer C

At least you got a sorry.  I didn’t even get that.  The service person didn’t even make any suggestions and only did what I asked.  If I didn’t ask her to look for other airports or flights she would have just hung up on me. 

Same impersonal text with no details.  There was no weather problems at my destination or origination.