Chiming in with my experience during this Southwest disaster. I was on a business trip this week in the Bay Area and was supposed to fly out of San Jose to L.A. on Wednesday evening. I got to the airport early around 5 p.m. only to find hundreds of people lying on the floor of the airport. I have flown out of SJC many times and it's a more bussiness oriented airport, never seen anything like this and I didn't know what was going on. Thanks to Google (Southwest NEVER notified me that my flight was delayed) I found out my flight was delayed 2 hours, as were all the flights going to Southern California. I thought alright, it's annoying but at least I'll get home sometime that evening. I (thankfully) didn't check in my bag and went through security only to find massive customer service lines everywhere at every Southwest counter. I thought people must be trying to get on earlier flights on standby, since there were no other announcements. As I'm sitting waiting for my flight, I'm notified by Google that my flight is cancelled!!! Again, Southwest NEVER notified me that my flight was canceled either! I rush to a gate where I see an attendant and ask her if it's true, that my flight is canceled. She says yes and when I ask her why it's shown on the Departures board as Delayed, not Cancelled, she points me to a snail paced customer service line. I go there and ask one of the customers service reps if it's true that my flight to L.A. is canceled. She says yes. The insult came when I asked why it is not listed on the Departures board as canceled. Her response: "The board is owned by the City of San Jose, not by Southwest!" Really??? That's the excuse for no information regarding canceled flights? BTW, I was there from 5 p.m. till 9 p.m., there was no Southwest announcement whatsoever on the PA system about canceled flights! No texts, no emails, nothing to let me know of my flight cancellation! So then I get in one of the giant CS lines to see how I can get on a flight to anywhere in Southern California at this point. While in line, there's a PA annoucement about a flight boarding for L.A. I and a lot of other people rush to the gate and we're trying to talk to the gate attendant to see if we can get on standby for the flight. She literally ignored us! There was a man who was trying to get to Ontario since 2 p.m., he spend 3+ hours in CS line and was put on standby for this flight; he told all this to the gate attendant and she literally pretended he didn't exist! A woman showed up at the gate who was originally told this flight had been canceled and she had been put on standby for another L.A. flight. She had her original boarding pass for this flight and was denied boarding. Moreso, the gate attendant was guilt-tripping her, saying that now she's expecting to bump someone else from the flight for her benefit! At this point I gave up and took an Uber for Oakland where I spent the night on my friend's living room floor and caught a Delta flight in the morning for LAX. I am shocked at the abysmal CS treatment we have received from Southwest during this time. I understand that technical problems happen, but mistreating people like this is NOT acceptable! During the hours I have spent at SJC airport no one was offered water, seats, overnight accommodations, or even basic information such as flights being canceled that would have helped us make alternate travel choices. I have flown many airlines, and this is the worst treatment I have ever received. Even Air France had the decency to let me know my flight was canceled during one of their many strikes. If anyone from Southwest CS is reading this, this is what your utter lack of CS support has cost me: Uber ride to Oakland: $46 Delta flight OAK-LAX: $248 Canceled Southwest flight: $116 I have been a loyal Southwest customer for many years, in fact I have not flown with any other airline domestically for the past 6 years at the very least. I even have the Southwest Premier credit card and have referred other people for it since I thought Southwest was a great airline until now. Well, count me out! I do not want to be involved in any way with a company that would mistreat customers like this!
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