Hi there, No complaints here. Just awesome stories... As a former child to a former SWA Captain of 25+ years (J. K. Duffy), I felt compelled to share this wonderful story because I truly believe that this is what differentiates Southwest in the industry. Unfortunately I wasn't sure of the venue to share it on, so I am sharing here. Also, forgive me in advance for the length of this, but it's a goodie... This weekend my team and I (Dry Heat Hockey Club) headed to the National Pond Hockey Championships in Eagle River, WI. This was our third year heading that way and in previous years we took votes on how to get there (since the closest SWA flies is to Milwaukee which is about 4 hours away driving). The past 2 years, we all voted and I was overruled each time (obviously my vote was Southwest every time) and we ended up flying on American or another (I forget). After 2 years of absolutely atrocious travel stories (lost baggage, cancelled flights, poor pilot flight time management, etc.), I finally convinced the team to fly Southwest. And, gosh... you guys really rose to the occasion. Although there are several positive stories I could share about the skycap, ops, flight crew, pilots, etc. at each of the airports we went through (PHX, DEN, and MKE) there was one story that stood out above all others. It was regarding the check-in staff at MKE. As some are aware, Sunday (2/9/20) a fairly large winter storm hit the midwest. And even though as a team we opted to forgo playing a game Sunday morning and start our ~4hr drive from Eagle River to Milwaukee for fear of missing our flight, we still ended up doing so. The 4ish hour drive actually took 9! We ended up missing our 5:30pm flight by ~30 minutes. #sadface But, never fear! The folks at SWA took care of us. But before I go into that, let me back up a sec. Since we had a good idea that we were going to miss we made a call to the standard 800 number and asked about our options. IE changing our flight, etc. Upon speaking with an awesome rep (I'll neglect to say their name though, you'll see why in a sec) she notified us that it is in our best interest to NOT change our flight and speak with the reps at the check in desk instead. That way, we could avoid paying the $400 it would cost each of us to change (there was 16 of us). Wow! Talk about putting yourself in the customer's shoes... holy smokes. Ok, now back to the even better part... we walk into the check-in desk at MKE and notify the reps (one being Dawn Triplett) of our situation. We were then notified that there were only 20 seats left on the next flight PHX to DEN, then 17 left on the DEN to PHX connection. Given my personal background with the company and traveling literally hundreds of times non-rev, I had a fairly good idea of how this would go down unless we got some major help--we'd be put on stand by and we'd probably get about half home by the end of the night. Upon hearing our news Dawn brought over her Supervisor Alethea Bounds (AKA the “boss” lady). Alethea then proceeded to tell all 4 reps revising our travel plans to override the system due to weather conditions. Simply said, she enabled us to obtain actual tickets versus riding standby and basically guaranteed that we would all get home. Double WOW. It was all downhill form there... We got home, got our bags (none lost ha!) and went on home to our families. So, on behalf of the whole Dry Heat hockey team, please let me extend our collective gratitude for all that you did. It's these exact situations that differentiate Southwest from all others. You guys are the best! THANK. YOU. Sincerely, Joshua Duffy (#4) Dry Heat Hockey Club (/dryheathockeyclub on Facebook)
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