(corrected spelling mistakes, noted that first leg was to LAS enroute to SJC) I tried to post this days ago... but perhaps like the website, the planes and the luggage ... it got lost. I observed three major issues with the SWA outage. I do get that this was painful... I work maintaining heavily used public websites myself. But This is the second outage in less than a year - last time it was October, 2015. AFTER the website was restored on Friday (outage was Wed) we watched as the first leg of our RDU to SJC flight which was to LAS crept from 15 minutes delayed up to over 90 minutes and I discovered that there were no available flights to rebook, I called the 800 number, spent 55 minutes on hold. I asked the agent if she could split our flight in two... so that we could fly to Las Vegas, spend the night and then take a flight the following day to SJC. HOWEVER SHE SAID SHE HAD NO ABILITY TO DO THAT.. what? She could only "book full complete flights", and if we wanted to work that we had to GO to the airport, STAND in line and see if a gate agent could arrange it. The delays continued to stack up until the last flight (ours) was canceled. Our only option was to rebook for two days later to fly to OAKland. Fortunately we were with friends, not stuck in a terminal or separated from our luggage. Continuing to issue delay notices (rather than outright cancellations) shows indecisiveness and callousness toward your customers. Despite the website comments about "rebooking without penalties" (and the pathethic insult of: we're sorry, we've extended our sale), there really was no way to rebook online because there were no flights through the "7/24" date at all. I also note from the many comments here that Southwest failed - despite your stated policies - to offer vouchers, accomodations, and more. I suspect that for every example of good things employees did, you'll find a thousand paying customers who were heavily inconvenienced both in time frustration and hundreds of dollars out of their pockets. I have been a big fan of "Transfarency" but I'm a bigger fan of arriving. I think Southwest needs to stop the apologies and do something significant to prevent further hemorrhaging of customers like me. "Sorry we stranded you for 25 hours." "Sorry we destroyed your vacation." "Sorry we failed to provide a level of care of our competitors". "Sorry we sent your luggage somewhere else from where we sent you." See... it gets old. Compare with. "We really screwed up and inconvenienced you horribly. We would like to keep you as a customer... here is a voucher for travel anywhere we fly." Or better "Here is a refund of your entire fare for our mistake." It's the actions versus words thing. Words, like boarding passes for flights that will never fly are cheap.
... View more
