Granted, the warm fuzzies put a positive spin on a few passenger's experiences. With a daily passenger count of almost 325,000 people, that means that these past four-five days affected almost 1,300,000 people... that's 1.3 MILLION people! SWA could have treated passengers with an increased level of human dignity. They continued to allow check-ins, when they KNEW flights were going to be cancelled. Once through TSA and separated from their baggage, they become prisoners of SWA - stranded in airports across the country. At most SWA destinations, they refused (or were not equipped) to provide the basic necessities for these stranded passengers - like meals, drinks and cots. Most destinations did not have a plan in place to recover baggage for those passengers desiring to leave the airport or book alternative passage. For stranded passengers, most other major airlines absorb the costs and provide meal, hotel and taxi vouchers until services resume or flights become available. Passengers can certainly understand the uncertainty of flights when there is a crashed system and as the airline operates on a manual mode. But once SWA cancels a flight (for other than weather delays), SWA ASSUMES THE RESPONSIBILITY TO CARE FOR THOSE AFFECTED PASSENGERS. SWA failed to step up at EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR 103 AIRPORTS to care for these stranded passengers. SWA dropped the ball, by not being honest and forthright or providing the dignity of basic human needs for a predicament that they created. Regardless of the cause of the system failure and slow recovery (hackers, mechanical failure, human error, DDoS attack, poor contingency planning, etc.), SWA failed to provide for the most important part of their business... THEIR PASSENGERS.
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