I’ll start by saying I’ve been a very loyal Southwest flyer over the years. I have well over a million miles in my rapid rewards account. I travel a lot for work and pleasure. I solely choose which airline to fly. Until recently, I’ve flown Southwest exclusively. Like most Americans I severely cut back on travel during the pandemic. About a month ago I began traveling again. I can confidently say this is not the same Southwest I knew pre-pandemic. While I applaud management for admitting they have a problem, like others have said, honesty goes a long way. As a pilot myself, I understand weather can be a reason but in my opinion is not the culprit in this case. What’s happened here is a systemic management breakdown on many levels. The one item I appreciate most in any airline is reliability. It’s safe to say over the past several months Southwest has been the least reliable airline. Just look at the stats about cancellations and delays, Southwest leads the pack; this is one statistic an airline should never lead. I totally understand weather and various other items contribute to delays but Southwests problems go well beyond weather. Not enough employees, those left are stressed, overworked and just burnt out. I also understand it was a fight for airlines to survive the pandemic. Many decisions needed to be made, cut costs at all costs and squeeze out costs everywhere just to survive. I applaud Southwest for surviving the pandemic. Let’s not forget the American taxpayer contributed to keeping the airline industry afloat, not complaining but the airlines had help. The last several flights I’ve been on have either been delayed or cancelled. At 55 years old, sleeping in an airport because of a cancelled flight is not my idea of fun. (True story we sat on a plane for 3 hours while the ops crew tried to load bags, then loaded too many bags and become overweight; in a Max 8, just to have the crew time out because of the ground ops shortcomings. As I said above, this is a systematic failure on many levels none of which are weather related. When the flight was finally cancelled, at 12:40 am, the burnt out customer service team in the terminal was less than friendly). All the sudden Southwest is everything they railed against during their growth. I hope Southwest figures things out but as I said this is a failure on many levels and it will take years to recover. As much as it pains me, I’ll be flying other airlines and no longer argue with people when they question why I fly Southwest. Southwest is now the most expensive, unreliable, unfriendly airlines in the sky (as Southwest would joke, if you want that, fly Delta) But hey, the marketing department is working overtime sending me promos to fly more. After the debacle I describe above, I called customer service to complain (the first time I’ve EVER done that) After waiting 10 mins to talk with someone, I spoke with a young many who said sorry a lot but really didn’t help. He then asked what I wanted. All I wanted was the old Southwest. I recall a flight where the pilot aborted the takeoff due to weather. It was a scary situation but totally the right call. By the time I got to my destination I had an email from Southwest apologizing for the situation and a $50 voucher. I could care less about the voucher (I never used it) but I was thrilled Southwest recognized the situation for what it was and owed it. I told every I knew about how Southwest handled that situation. I want that Southwest back, the one that cares about their customers (Southwest has the best safety record of any major airline). The Southwest today sadly has become the Delta they mocked. I want my old partner back! Southwest can be much better, they were! In short not much to Luv these days. Herb’s probably rolling over. Truly sad, I feel like I’m getting divorced and I don’t want to leave but I’m not interested in an abusive relationship where my partner lies to me, is no longer trustworthy and costs me more than they ever have. Consider us officially separated, if you can clean up your act, I may give you another chance but for now, I’m out.
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