What a day. Southwest you've got some disappointed customers after today. Most of us found out that our original flight #2263 scheduled to depart Denver at 5:45 pm local time was cancelled. I personally received a text message at 2:53 am stating that the flight was cancelled. I changed my flight to depart Denver at 4:30 instead with service to Minneapolis going to Chicago Midway. I made this change using the website. there was not another non stop option available, instead 2 stops was all that was left. I tried calling customer service to see if another airline would be an option, but after being on hold for 92 minutes, I was told sorry, nothing else can be done. My 3 hour flight was now turning into 7 hours. After we arrived in Minneapolis, (not currently snowing) I received another message that the next flight was delayed to 12:35 am. Immediately followed up with another text message saying the flight was delayed until 10:35 pm on Nov. 1st. The plane continued on to Chicago, however upon arrival the flight to GRR #1865 had been delayed to 11:00 pm. ( Also not snowing in Chicago at this time) But boarding didn't start until 11:05pm. Cabin doors didn't shut until 11:41, and we didn't get pushed back from the gate until 11:56 pm. (Even though your website says we departed at 11:45. ) We actually took off at 12:03 am, landed at 1:31 am. Odd that the flight crew said it would only be a 27 minute flight when it was scheduled to be a 50 minute fight. But at this point, thank you for shaving 20 minutes off. The reason we were told that the original direct flight being cancelled was due to weather. Yes it snowed in all of these cities recently, but they are also cities very well equipped with handling 1 -3 inches of snow. (Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Grand Rapids). The original flight from Denver was to arrive in Grand Rapids at 10:35 pm est. The national weather service states that the snow stopped in Grand rapids around 9:30 pm. Denver didn't receive any precipitation on Oct. 31st. It was a typical beautiful sunny day. But the flight was cancelled 15 hours before it departed, and yet weather which turned out not to be a factor, was the cause? The other detail I found odd was that apparently all the passengers that were on that direct flight that I talked to, all managed to find similar fights to mine. Whether they were traveling from San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, New Mexico, Charlotte. Etc. Now that you have the details of the day, I have some questions and would like some answers before booking with Southwest again. 1. Was this flight #2263 not full enough? Did you cancel a flight knowing that these passengers would be inconvenienced but ultimately you had room on your other flights to accommodate them? 2. Why multiple text messages that didn't end up being even close to accurate? 3. Why did we sit in our seats on the tarmack for 50 minutes in a plane for a 27 minute flight. 4. I upgraded to priority seating to make my connection, but didn't need it. Could I get reimbursed for that since the reason to make a connection was because the direct flight was cancelled. Thanks, Nick in Grand Rapids
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