Poor Service on Southwest

[sharonmickey]

Excuse me while I vent:

I am so frustrated with Southwest Air. My daughter flew this past winter. It started when the flight into Pittsburgh was delayed and she would miss her connection. Southwest moved her flight to the next day. Again the next morning, the flight was delayed and she would miss her connection. Southwest booked her on another flight, this time to Chicago. Flying to Chicago in January is not a good idea however, the agent at the gate assured her that Chicago Airport was open and making a connection would not be a problem. She landed in Chicago and was told the airport was closed. No flights out. She was stuck for two days. Southwest refused to give her a hotel because it was weather related. Now remember, they had assured her she would not be stuck before she got on the plane in Pittsburgh. She spent two days at the airport. Southwest kept cancelling every flight they booked her on. Finally she went to Delta and bought a flight. She was home in 6 hours. Southwest had told her it would be at least two more days until they could get her home.

Because Southwest allows you to change flights her husband booked a flight on Southwest tonight. Yet again, his first flight was delayed. Again the gate agent told him that he would make his connection. He got on the plane and flew to Baltimore. They sat on the tarmac so long that he missed his connecting flight. Now he is stuck in Baltimore with no more flights available today. Southwest is refusing to give him a hotel room because they said he missed his connection due to air traffic controllers. Poor guy is stuck with no contact solution or toiletries because they are all here as he was expecting to be here tonight.

The agents at the gate should not make promises they can't keep. DD could have spent the days she was stuck in Chicago here if the agent hadn't told her she would get home. Son-in-law could have spent the night at their house in Charleston if the gate agent hadn't told him he would make the connection. If it wasn't 11:00 at night I would have just driven the 5 hours to Baltimore to pick him up.

 

[grammaHBSR4]

I think nowadays all airlines are giving very poor customer service. I have had several problems with Delta. I recently was also told I would have no problem making my connecting flight only to sit on runway forever waiting to take off. Then when I got to connecting airport gate agent told me a gate to go to to rebook & when I got to that gate no one was there! They really don't seem to care anymore - remember the days when you missed a flight or there were problems, you received vouchers for a free flight??

 

[hsmamato2]

OP, I hate to say it, but I am beginning to agree with you... In the past few months, I have noticed a BIG change from how SWA used to operate till now. Previous to this year, we would fly maybe 2-3 times per year, and never had flight changes, delays,issues, things were always pretty smooth. Since January, We have returned from our 2nd trip, using multiple flights and connections. I dislike Chicago airport IMMENSELY- every single time we went through there the airport was full of unhappy delayed passengers. After traveling thru Baltimore a few times, I am beginning to wonder about what is happening. Also seeing lots of delays and problems, not just my flights, but some of those around me were REALLY stuck (Flights delayed from 10 p.m. till 2 a.m. if they were lucky-etc etc)
I have an upcoming trip booked, and it has been 'adjusted' by SWA at least 6 times in the past couple of months. I also noticed a lack of desirable flights and times in contrast to what I used to see. I believe it is the Airtran merger that is the cause, now that they are 'one' airline, everything is different. I do hope things smooth out a bit, since this sort of 'feels' like an adjustment period, but I don't know.

 

[scrapquitler]

Excuse me while I vent:

I am so frustrated with Southwest Air. My daughter flew this past winter. It started when the flight into Pittsburgh was delayed and she would miss her connection. Southwest moved her flight to the next day. Again the next morning, the flight was delayed and she would miss her connection. Southwest booked her on another flight, this time to Chicago. Flying to Chicago in January is not a good idea however, the agent at the gate assured her that Chicago Airport was open and making a connection would not be a problem. She landed in Chicago and was told the airport was closed. No flights out. She was stuck for two days. Southwest refused to give her a hotel because it was weather related. Now remember, they had assured her she would not be stuck before she got on the plane in Pittsburgh. She spent two days at the airport. Southwest kept cancelling every flight they booked her on. Finally she went to Delta and bought a flight. She was home in 6 hours. Southwest had told her it would be at least two more days until they could get her home.

Because Southwest allows you to change flights her husband booked a flight on Southwest tonight. Yet again, his first flight was delayed. Again the gate agent told him that he would make his connection. He got on the plane and flew to Baltimore. They sat on the tarmac so long that he missed his connecting flight. Now he is stuck in Baltimore with no more flights available today. Southwest is refusing to give him a hotel room because they said he missed his connection due to air traffic controllers. Poor guy is stuck with no contact solution or toiletries because they are all here as he was expecting to be here tonight.

The agents at the gate should not make promises they can't keep. DD could have spent the days she was stuck in Chicago here if the agent hadn't told her she would get home. Son-in-law could have spent the night at their house in Charleston if the gate agent hadn't told him he would make the connection. If it wasn't 11:00 at night I would have just driven the 5 hours to Baltimore to pick him up.

I think that lack of good customer service is not exclusive to SouthWest.

It seems to me that some of the problems that you describe stem from the fact that SouthWest does not participate in the agreements that most airlines have to allow them to book passengers on one another's flights when there is a delay/missed connection/equipment problem. Usually if your flight is delayed, an airline can swap you over to a different company if need be, but SouthWest doesn't do that. That to me, is one of the main drawbacks of SouthWest, as I have been in that position several times.

 

[kamik86]

I always get surprised with stories like this... maybe I have been very lucky but I fly alot. (8 or 9 round trips this year many of those with connections in Chicago or Baltimore and a similar amount last year) and only one time did I ever have a flight where I didn't make my connection on SW. However they still got me to another nearby airport that night.

Now I have been delayed a lot. Getting home hours later. But have never once gotten stuck. I also almost got redirected (which would have left me stuck) from chicago to indianapolis but the air traffic controllers figured that out in time to get us on the ground in Chicago... but that one was during a huge storm so issues were understandable.

Were these trips you mentioned during major storms?

 

[Sadie22]

The previous poster has a good point. However, there were all sorts of weather-related problems out of the Chicago airports in January that were not the fault of the airlines. It wasn't just Southwest that had problems. Or Pittsburgh or Baltimore. DS flies a lot and seems to be able to make adjustments without much stress, but it does get on my nerves.

 

[I loveStitchnippyjon]

Weather delays are the worst! We have such crazy weather in the winter that connections are extremely iffy. That's why our December WDW trip is getting booked on the ONLY direct flight to MCO (JetBlue) which will cost a couple hundred more than a connecting flight....sigh

 

[JanaDee]

My advice to anyone that is flying in the winter through the Midwest is always fly direct, if at all possible.

The problems the OP listed are all weather-related, not necessarily SWA.

 

[supersnoop]

The gate agent can only work with the information they have available at the moment. If flights at the connecting airport are still listed as departing on-time, that's all they know.

I once argued with a Jet Blue gate agent at JFK. He insisted that my delayed flight would be boarding soon. I had him turn around and read the display above his head that said it was cancelled.

 

[ktlm]

We actually had terrific customer service on our Southwest trip last month. Our plane was delayed due to mechanical issues it was having at the airport it was coming from which was about an hour's flight away. It was supposed to be delayed an hour and a half, but they turned out getting it there quicker. The issue I have with Southwest is that they book very tight connections. Then, once our plane was in the air on its way to us and they knew how long it was going to be delayed, they checked everyones connection. There were a bunch of people on our specific connection (over 30), so they held that plane to wait for us all rather than rebooking us. For everyone else, they could not get planes held, but if people were going to miss their connection, they automatically booked new connections and announced them before we got on our plane. For people that were going to be close, they booked back up connections that if they did miss their flight, they would be on that connection and gave everyone that information too. There were a couple of people that weren't happy because they were going to have to make 2 connections instead of 1 to get where they were going, but they were getting them there that day.

I think it is different when it is weather related so you have a multitude of flights delayed or cancelled in one airport, or when you are dealing with a late night connection without many more options, if any.


I had bad experiences with Delta and American. I had a Delta flight that was supposed to leave at 8:00 a.m. It got cancelled and they told us they would not rebook us that day and we would have to wait until the next morning because all the other flights were totally full and they would not book us on another airline- which we were teaching a seminar to about 50 people the next morning so that didn't work. We wound up having to get a flight to an airport 3 hours away, renting a car, and driving the rest of the way.


American, our 8:30 am flight got delayed until supposedly 3:00, due to the fact the plane had mechanical issues and they had to DRIVE a crew and part up from a city 3 hours away to fix it. They refused to cancel it because they didn't want to have to rebook everyone (i.e. my guess is there was a large group of military people on it they did not want to rebook). They did start rebooking some people (the non-military people). After much begging, (and a 7 year old in tears because she wasn't going to get to WDW that day as they could not book us on a new connection that evening and we were going to miss all our FP+ and character meal lunch the next day based on the connection they were going to put us on- not to mention probably going to have to sleep in the airport because I'm guessing they would not have picked up the hotel)they did rebook my family on a 12:30 Delta flight, but they made us pick up our luggage and transfer it to Delta ourselves because it was more than 3 hours after our original flight (other people they automatically transferred their luggage). When we carried our 3 bags over to Delta, they insisted that we pay them $75 in baggage charges even though we had already paid that to American. Delta told us it was American's problem, and American told us that Delta wrongfully charged us and we would have to get it back from them, they weren't refunding it. We went round and round with both of them, but never got our money back. At least we made it to WDW that day- but it was 5 hours later than we were supposed to, blowing our dinner ADR and evening at the park we were hoping for. (FYI- that 8:30 a.m. flight- it wound up leaving the airport about 5:30 p.m. What really stinks is that poor large group of service men and women booked on that flight. The one we were talking to had slept at the airport the night before with some of the others because American couldn't get them out on the flight they were supposed to have been on that night and they had to wait until morning and they had nowhere to go)


I think all airlines have their issues. I think whether you get good customer services depends on the airport where you are, what employee is working the desk and/or which employee happens to answer the phone when you call. Unfortunately, we don't have many direct flights from here (unless your end destination is a hub city), so we almost always are dealing with connections.

 

[misskerri]

I totally understand the frustration (we were stuck in Birmingham last year while new equipment was routed for our flight home...it caused a domino effect of delays all the way down the line for SW), but I will say this: a gate/ticket agent simply cannot assure you that your plane won't be delayed, that you will make your connection, etc. There are way too many variables. In the instance where your son in law was stuck on the tarmac, that wasn't really foreseeable by a gate or ticket agent, and was completely out of the airline's hands. All kinds of things can cause a gate to not be ready when a plane lands.

And I don't think that airlines should eat the cost for the sake of customer service when something like weather or traffic conditions cause missed flights, etc. I think they try, in most cases, but when things are out of their control, well, they're out of their control. And these kinds of things happen far too often for it to be an absorbable cost of doing business, unless we'd like to see them raise their fares back to the point where ordinary people can't really afford to fly any more, like the 60s and 70s.

All that said, I'm a little nervous about our October trip to MCO. We are flying SW again (instead of AA), for a variety of reasons, and I THOUGHT that our layover in Houston on the way home was a "no plane change" layover, but it turns out it's NOT, and we have exactly 35 minutes from arrival of our plane from MCO til departure of our plane for DAL.

 

[DawnM]

I had a bit of a bad experience with SW last winter myself. We didn't get stuck anywhere for 2 days, but there were seat savers all over the place. We had A boarding but so many saved seats for their C boarding friends that my son and I couldn't sit together. When I complained I was told that seat saving is allowed! Then why the heck even have staggered boarding!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ellochka]

SWA is integrating AirTran into their operations this year, maybe that's why the trouble. From my b-school days I remember that SWA model was built specifically for direct flights, so I only fly direct on SWA. If can't find direct on SWA, I will book a connection flight through a different airline (except United through Denver - they always lose your luggage).

 

[smitch425]

I had a bit of a bad experience with SW last winter myself. We didn't get stuck anywhere for 2 days, but there were seat savers all over the place. We had A boarding but so many saved seats for their C boarding friends that my son and I couldn't sit together. When I complained I was told that seat saving is allowed! Then why the heck even have staggered boarding!!!!!!!!!!

That makes no sense. I would have sat in the seats I wanted and the seat saver would either stay put or move along.

 

[Maggie Lizer]

I fly out of BWI so I always get direct, nonstop SWA flights and have had good experiences. My worst experience in the past few years was on Delta - changed my seats from 2 on the side to two in the center of the plane and of course stick me next to an obese person so I uncomfortable for the entire 8 hour flight. Why let me select seats if you are going to move me anyway, Delta??? Completely turned me off to flying Delta anytime soon.

 

[misskerri]

I had a bit of a bad experience with SW last winter myself. We didn't get stuck anywhere for 2 days, but there were seat savers all over the place. We had A boarding but so many saved seats for their C boarding friends that my son and I couldn't sit together. When I complained I was told that seat saving is allowed! Then why the heck even have staggered boarding!!!!!!!!!!

Now THAT is bad service.

 

[Praying Colonel]

I've always thought of Southwest as a carrier who offers big discounts, so I don't really expect good customer service from them. They've usually met my low expectations.

 

[wiscbugs]

I had a bit of a bad experience with SW last winter myself. We didn't get stuck anywhere for 2 days, but there were seat savers all over the place. We had A boarding but so many saved seats for their C boarding friends that my son and I couldn't sit together. When I complained I was told that seat saving is allowed! Then why the heck even have staggered boarding!!!!!!!!!!

Seat saving is allowed on Southwest...I'm not sure why people complain about it all the time.

 

[smitch425]

Seat saving is allowed on Southwest...I'm not sure why people complain about it all the time.

The website states that you can sit in any available seat. I take that to mean any seat that doesn't have a person in it.

 

[elgerber]

We actually had terrific customer service on our Southwest trip last month. Our plane was delayed due to mechanical issues it was having at the airport it was coming from which was about an hour's flight away. It was supposed to be delayed an hour and a half, but they turned out getting it there quicker. The issue I have with Southwest is that they book very tight connections. Then, once our plane was in the air on its way to us and they knew how long it was going to be delayed, they checked everyones connection. There were a bunch of people on our specific connection (over 30), so they held that plane to wait for us all rather than rebooking us.

.

This wasn't by any chance Mpls to Milwaukee to Laguardia was it? We had this exact same scenario last month. 37 of us connecting to LGA, so they held the flight for us.