Southwest has been the only airline I've traveled with my entire life, my wife was also a flight attendant for several years but after the experience I've had with this company the past few days I will never fly this airline again. I was on flight 2703 (Tampa->Denver) on 12/22 just after 5 am. My flight the prior night was cancelled so when we boarded the plane I was relieved as I was flying out to Denver to see my daughter, wife (flew out a week earlier) and her family. It is my daughter's first Christmas. Unfortunately our flight was turned around roughly an hour outside of Denver and we headed back to Tampa. We were informed that the Denver Airport was just shut down. Upon landing in Tampa we were informed that we would be staying on the plane, refueling, and departing back to Denver. 2 minutes later a supervisor gets on the intercom and informs us that they would not be able to get us out to Denver on 12/22 and that we would need to get off the plane and wait for further instruction at the gate, this was around 9:30 am. Heard 3 different stories about why were turned around (1 - the airport shut down. 2 - there was ice on the runway so we couldn't land. 3 - Southwest doesn't have the manpower to execute their operations. Meanwhile I'm hearing from other passengers that their family members were landing in Denver on other airlines while our flight was back in route to Tampa. My wife is also informing me that Denver is currently receiving flights and that while there are cancellations people are still landing in Denver. Our flight was then informed that they may be able to get us out to Denver and that we would have to wait till 10:30 am for further instruction. 11 am rolls around and they let us know that they'll have another update at 1 pm and that if we'd like to get our bags or book another flight to come up to the counter. I decided to book another flight at 9:30 pm that night and the employee at the counter let me know that they'd transfer my bags to the new flight. I went home to get some rest. Just before 4 pm I get a notification that the flight I rescheduled to got cancelled. To make matters even better the original flight was re-boarded at 2 pm. I tried to call Southwest to check on my bags but my call was dropped after being on hold for an hour. 2nd phone call, same thing. I drove back up to TIA (live roughly an hour away) to check on my bags that night and booked another flight on 12/23 at 9:30 pm. Baggage claim let me know my bags were in Denver and that I could pick them up when I got there the next day. A few of my wife's presents and my mother in law's birthday present are in the bags. I get to TIA the next day around 7 pm and was relieved my new flight 2757 was still on time. We are scheduled to board at 9 pm. a little after 9 pm rolls around and a flight for Baltimore is boarding at our gate. No announcement, no notification, no nothing. I check the board and now our flight is delayed to 11:45 pm with an 11:15 pm boarding. 11:30 pm rolls around and again no announcement no notification. As I'm walking up to the counter I overheard the employee letting another passenger know that Denver wouldn't be boarding till 12 pm. The communication at this point was an absolute joke. 12:15 pm rolls around and we get an announcement that the plane would have to be boarded in 20 minutes or we aren't getting out to Denver. At this point I'm astounded they made this announcement since the plane had been sitting connected at the gate for at least 30 minutes. They start taking a few pre-boarders (mostly folks in wheelchairs) into the gate and onto the plane. Few minutes later those folks come back out of the ramp and let us know we're not going to Denver, apparently they forgot to do a security sweep since the plane had be sitting at the airport over the allotted time. We were instructed to go to ticketing on the 3rd floor to work out our now cancelled flight. While in line they let us know that there were no more available flights to Denver until after Christmas. I let the employee know my story when it was my turn. At this point I just wanted my money back for both flights and to be reimbursed for parking both days. The employee laughed and rolled her eyes when I asked about reimbursement for parking. After saying my piece I went to baggage claim to figure out my bags. I was told that Southwest would not ship them back to my house and that I would have to drive all the way back to Tampa International to pick them up. Is this your customer service standard Southwest? Is this your new operations standard? It's enough to be missing my daughter's first Christmas which I will never get back. I'm pretty sure sure I'm not being unreasonable to ask for my money back for parking and my luggage to be shipped to my house. I'm probably asking for much less than most in my situation and to be laughed and discarded the way I was is a joke. To the employees that actually did show up for work this holiday season thank you, thank you for doing the job you're paid to do, these are the people that should be compensated. Not those whiney picketers (which always seem to be pilots and flight attendants) making much more than the average American. I guess that's what you pay for with unions, they've destroyed the American auto industry and it seems the airline industry is following the same path.
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