How does Southwest handle a cancelled flight?

[cherylsmike]

I have the last flight out Kansas City to Dallas (originating at MCO of course) and the flight info says it's 80% >30 min late and has a 20% cancellation rate. I had a 6 AM departure that made me sad because we don't arrive until after midnight (last day of school). That would have been two lost Disney days. The other flights were expensive. Then this one popped up and only cost me $4.25 total to change 3 tickets and we got a 6:30 PM departure. However, this is the risk we take. I understand.

My question, finally, is do they automatically rebook you if they cancel a flight. Or do they just refund the "funds" toward a new ticket and you are on your own to pay the difference in price. Back in the day I could take non-stop flights with Air-Tran if they cancelled or rescheduled a flight I could make a change to another flight at no extra charge. I have not know Southwest to change their schedule much.

Thank for your help

 

[DebbieB]

I have the last flight out Kansas City to Dallas (originating at MCO of course) and the flight info says it's 80% >30 min late and has a 20% cancellation rate. I had a 6 AM departure that made me sad because we don't arrive until after midnight (last day of school). That would have been two lost Disney days. The other flights were expensive. Then this one popped up and only cost me $4.25 total to change 3 tickets and we got a 6:30 PM departure. However, this is the risk we take. I understand.

My question, finally, is do they automatically rebook you if they cancel a flight. Or do they just refund the "funds" toward a new ticket and you are on your own to pay the difference in price. Back in the day I could take non-stop flights with Air-Tran if they cancelled or rescheduled a flight I could make a change to another flight at no extra charge. I have not know Southwest to change their schedule much.

Thank for your help

It's rare for them to totally cancel a flight, except for maybe during bad weather. I had a SW flight last year that was late. We were supposed to leave around 8:30pm, we didn't leave until 11:00pm, I got out of baggage claim around 2:00am.

If they do cancel, you have the option of waiting for the next flight with seats or getting a refund and finding another airline. SW does not interline, which means they will not put you on another airline. If the cancellation is due to weather, they are not obligated to pay for a hotel room if you have to stay overnight.

 

[mm1971]

I have the last flight out Kansas City to Dallas (originating at MCO of course) and the flight info says it's 80% >30 min late and has a 20% cancellation rate. I had a 6 AM departure that made me sad because we don't arrive until after midnight (last day of school). That would have been two lost Disney days. The other flights were expensive. Then this one popped up and only cost me $4.25 total to change 3 tickets and we got a 6:30 PM departure. However, this is the risk we take. I understand.

My question, finally, is do they automatically rebook you if they cancel a flight. Or do they just refund the "funds" toward a new ticket and you are on your own to pay the difference in price. Back in the day I could take non-stop flights with Air-Tran if they cancelled or rescheduled a flight I could make a change to another flight at no extra charge. I have not know Southwest to change their schedule much.

Thank for your help

You have the option of waiting for the next flight with available space or you can get a credit.

As far as getting canceled, I would doubt it at that time of the year. The cancelled flights are mostly due to weather related issues. Either the weather in KC does not allow the plan to land or there were issues at other airports and the flight won't be able to get there. In June I would think the likelihood of anything happening is pretty minimal.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

I won't worry about them canceling the flight. Like PP stated it would be cancelled because of weather but you would have options to move to another flight.

 

[BrownMomma7]

We had our flight cancelled last year. It was our flight home. They phoned us about 10 days ahead of time to inform us our new time was 2 hours earlier and now had a connecting flight. :-( uggggh! With two little ones in two this wasn't our ideal situation. We lucked out that it didn't effect our intensity for the last day and tried to make the best of it. We did have an option to get credited and then rebook but with less than 10 days we didn't want to chance it.

 

[bumbershoot]

I have the last flight out Kansas City to Dallas (originating at MCO of course) and the flight info says it's 80% >30 min late and has a 20% cancellation rate.

Is it that 20% that's worrying you? I don't know how long they look back to get the percentage, but remember that Dallas had a pretty hard time with flights a couple months back. If December flights are still factoring in, they are heavily skewing the cancellation percentage because of that awful storm system.