Southwest Airlines Community

Let me begin......on a family vacation to Visit my family in Cocoa Florida we chose to fly to Orlando using Southwest Airlines based on my family recommending thenand using them for many years.  We were scheduled to fly out back home to Columbus Ohio on July 22nd at 9:40pm.  We arrived at the airport at approximately 7:30pm to allow extra time and went through security no problem and were greeted by friendly courteous TSA associates.  Upon arriving at the Southwest Airlines gate 126 we took a seat and waited patiently for our flight.  With 15 minutes or flight was delayed until 9:55pm.  The southwest associate came over the speaker many times over the next few hours and the flight was delayed and delayed and finally the final time to depart was 2:00am.  As we waited with our three children (two small) we watched as almost every flight around us became delayed and eventually cancelled.  Some southwest flights were still coming and going and there was a thunderstorm passing through but planes were still able to take off and land all around us.  Upon checking the flight status boards most other airlines continued to operate as scheduled and only southwest seemed to be having a major meltdown.  Many flights were canceled at no point did any southwest associate state that it was weather related.  Instead, multiple flights were cancelled and announced to customers that there were not enough staff to fly.  For example they only had two flight attendants or only one pilot therefore the flight would have to be cancelled.  Many people became stranded and upset and southwest service counters became flooded with long lines of passengers trying to get home.  They announced that you could wait in line for hours Trying to get a flight or they suggested calling the 800 customer service line to make arrangements. At approximately 1:55 our flight was cancelled that was delayed but scheduled to depart at 2:00am on 7/23/18.  We immediately became stranded as many others and were worried about finding our luggage, a hotel, and a way to get home to Ohio.  My wife called the 800 number at the next phase of waiting began.  We headed to the baggage claim and waited for any sign of our luggage.  Three hours later at approximately 5:00am our luggage came out on the carasel.  With our children sleeping on the dirty floor of the baggage claim we grabbed our luggage and then at the same time my wife finally hears a voice on the other end of the 800 customer service and begins to try and find a flight.  Three hours on hold, the southwest employee on the end of the phone says there are no flights that day and the only flight would be on Tuesday 7/24/18 and it’s was a connecting flight and we would have to drive to Tampa to depart.  We took this first flight that was available so we can get back to our lives in Ohio.  We have not flown out yet being this is Monday 7/23/18 so here may be another chapter to this horrible experience.  Now the ripple effect......the hotel in the airport was booked so we had to rent a car, find an open hotel, and lose another day of our lives back in Ohio due to this customer service disaster.  My wife is a nurse and I work in management and now we both had to call our employers and call off work for Tuesday 7/24/18.  Not only have we lost wages,  we had our dog  kenneled and had to extend his stay costing more money.  Our oldest son will miss his first day of drivers education as recently celebrated his 16th birthday and upon calling to notify them the have he has to now be rescheduled for six weeks later because we missed the first day.....very disappointed for him. My middle son will miss his first day of 7th grade football....we all know first impressions to coaches make a big difference and this isn’t a good one that is out of his control....poor kid.  My youngest will miss his final baseball game of the season.....again out of his control.   I realize all of these may seem material but here is my biggest issue with all of this.  I watched over the course of 10 hours in the southwest terminal as young children were exhausted, handicapped people in wheelchairs flying by themselves couldn’t be helped because there were not enough southwest employees to assist them, young travelers with limited funds and resources became stranded.  Most of the southwest employees stood by and did not offer updates, answers, and only said they didn’t know what was going on.  I walked up to southwest counter at one point that had two employees and barely any line at all to hear the southwest employees tell the customers that the could not help them as to “go somewhere else” because their shift ended in 10 minutes.  I am more than disappointed in this airline and disgusted by the poor level of customer service and nightmare that my family had to experience.  My wife cried her eyes out and my children were scared and mortified by this and will never want to fly again.  My entire family travels with southwest mainly because of the direct flights to Columbus but this will change.  I feel sorry for the many others who had to go through this as we did and hope that everyone makes it home safely and ok.  At this point southwest has not made this right and I don’t expect much of anything at this point.  Good luck to all of those who are stranded. ... 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