Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Maintenance flight cancellations

MarcLopata
Explorer C

 In the last four months, several of my Southwest flights have been delayed or canceled for maintenance reasons.   This seems to be happening more and more often on Southwest.  My flight today was canceled for maintenance from MDW to CVG necessitating me to rent a car to make a business meeting and also be late for that meeting.  Southwest refused to cover the additional cost to me caused by their failure to maintain their fleet. Not happy about that. Similar experiences out there?

3 REPLIES 3

Re: Maintenance flight cancellations

basslaw2010
Frequent Flyer B

Call AMFA....

Re: Maintenance flight cancellations

CareforNOLA
Frequent Flyer A

Hello @MarcLopata,

I am sorry that happened, and there is some controversy about the cause of these recent maintenance cancellations.  Some believe that the cancellations are a tactic from the maintenance union as they and the airline are currently in negotiations.  On the other hand, if a mechanic or pilot reports a problem, the safety aspect would be important enough for a flight cancellation.    

 

There has also been a fair number of late winter storms impeding aircraft moving through the regular flight patterns.   

 

I hope all the negotiation issues get resolved soon because, like you and most other passengers, I appreciate on-time flights.

 

As far as your extra out of pocket cost, you could try putting together a letter for Customer Service explaining the matter.  The people at headquarters have options for responding that a gate agent may not be able to initiate. But then again, I would not have too many expectations because a true “maintenance cancellation” does not typically call for a reimbursement.  And passengers cannot make that determination.

 

Best of luck and safe travels in the future.  Like you, I am looking forward to on-time schedules as soon as possible (to the extent possible — of course, there is always weather and some other issues that can cause delays).  I am sure airline management is hoping for the same.

 

Re: Maintenance flight cancellations

chgoflyer
Aviator A
Solution

Southwest does not reimburse for alternate travel arrangements. If your flight is cancelled for "mechanical," in addition to a refund or reaccomodation, you will likely receive a good-will gesture from Southwest in the form of a small voucher towards future travel. If you don't receive this automatically, contact Customer Relations after travel is complete.

 

FYI: If your flight is cancelled for "weather" in general you will receive nothing, as weather is out of the control of the carrier.