Poor Service on Southwest

[mickeyluv'r]

Getting stuck anywhere is annoying, but weather delays this past winter? This past winter was pretty crazy.

We fly SWA quite frequently, and have generally found their service to be very good, at least compared to other airlines.

SWA's luggage allowance is a big part of our loyalty.

I also like their speedy boarding system, easy to use website, and live phone receptionists.

 

[chicagodisneyfan]

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.

You must not be a frequent flier. How the heck can you expect SWA to control ATC delays? It is not the airlines fault that a flight sat on a runway due to other circumstances.

In your daughters case - why wouldn't she just go get a hotel room? I would never stay at a airport for two days - I would go enjoy whatever city I happened to be at.

And yes, I was stranded in California in January due to the weather - and could not get to Chicago. Made the most of a "vacation" and visited museums and other things until I could get home.

 

[bumbershoot]

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.

Absolutely.

So now the OP and her family, and everyone reading here, can know that THEY must be proactive and realize that gate agents aren't psychics and don't know everything. I find that I know more, using flightaware and flightstats, than the airlines do. DH was traveling in December between Dallas and Seattle, and got caught in that awful ice storm. I had a head's up from those sites, that seemed to know more than the airline people (American, in our case), so we were able to be proactive and get on the phone before the airlines knew what was happening.

On the Transportation forum, if you do a search, you can find a post by former poster "bavaria" about what to do about weather delays. And the main concept is to *be prepared and proactive*. (I'd just do a google search for something like "bavaria disboards weather")

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!!!!!!!!!!

There's NO policy. That means you can save and it also means you can't. They aren't going to get involved. If you want to sit somewhere, just sit.

 

[kmb584]

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).


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.

I had a similar occurrence a couple of years ago with USAir. I fly out of Philly so I go in knowing that an on-time flight is simply pure luck, so I wasn't surprised to see my 1p flight delayed to 3p due to a mechanical issue. At 2:30p an announcement was made that the maintenance crew was just now on its way and we were delayed until 5:00p. At 4:20p they made an announcement that they were able to secure another aircraft and our gate was now on the other side of the terminal, so we all schlep over there and board. No sooner did we fasten our seatbelts was an announcement made that we needed to deplane as it was a "mix up" and the plane we were sittong on was slated to fly to Dublin, not Orlando. Not a single gate agent was able to give a direct answer, and they wouldn't even entertain the notion of booking us on different flights. I didn't fly out of Philly until 10p that night.

 

[bettymae1121]

Chicago in January was a mess. Between the Polar Vortex and several storms, both airports were grid lock for weeks. I know, I both live here and I'm a travel agent! I had my own January vacation canceled because United canceled my flight and couldn't get me out for a week (and by then my vacation time would be up). I wound up re-scheduling the trip for later in the spring.

Anyway, NO airline will book a stranded passenger in a hotel or on another airline's flight for a weather or ATC related event. SWA isn't alone in that regard. Other airlines are more accommodating than SWA for airline problems (mechanical or crew issues), but nobody helps due to a blizzard or air traffic congestion.

Some tips:

-For any carrier, try to have a layover on a connection of at least 60 minutes, 90 is better.

-Try to avoid having your connecting flight be the last flight of the day, so you have a better chance of not being stuck overnight.

-Have the airline's 800 number (or your travel agent's ) programed into your phone. In the event of a problem where you need to be re-booked, while waiting in line to speak to a gate/ticket agent see if you can get through to them over the phone. They can often re-book you while you're waiting in line and by the time you get to the gate agent, they can just re-print your boarding passes for the new flight. If you just wait in line and don't call, the next few flights could sell out before you get to the front of the line. Still get into line though, sometimes the hold times are longer than it takes to wait in line and speak to someone in person.

-Some airlines (I know this is true on Delta for sure) will also allow you to re-book a canceled flight through their website. If you have internet access while traveling, this might be your fastest way to grab a seat on the next available flight. When re-booking, time is critical because 200+ people are all trying to do the exact same thing.

 

[MomToOne]

I fly a lot. All airlines stink when there is a major problem. My rules:

1. Never, ever, ever believe what a gate agent tells you. They will tell you whatever they think you want to hear so that you leave and stop bothering them. Their goal is to get you out of their airport whatever it takes, so that you become someone else's problem. Same thing holds with the flight attendants once you are in the air - although in this case I think it's less about them not wanting you to bother them, but because they really don't have any information but want to make you feel better at least for a few minutes so they will tell you the most optimistic outcome possible for the situation.

2. The second you believe you will miss a connection, get ON THE PHONE to your airline and demand they hold you a seat on the next available flight. And possibly even a second one, in case you miss that one. If you can't stay on hold because your first flight is taking off or you are in the air, call/message (hello plane wifi!) a relative and ask them to call the airline and do this. If the airline agent tries to tell you they can't do that until after you actually miss your flight (they pull that one a lot) demand to speak with a supervisor. The squeaky wheel gets greased. DO NOT wait in line at the customer service desk at the airport - by the time you actually talk to an agent, all the available seats will be gone. Also, if there are alternate airports you are willing to fly into, then demand the airline agent you have on the phone check for flights to those airports as well - they often will not automatically do this.

3. If you have a relative with "status" on the airline you are flying and you don't, have them call the special number they have on your behalf - they will get through to an agent much faster, and the agent will be MUCH MORE accommodating. If no one has status, and you aren't getting through to anyone because of multi-hour delays on the phone lines, try buying a one-day pass into the airline club at the airport. There are agents in there that will be much more helpful as well.

4. If your airline is telling you there are no seats available, do the legwork yourself with other airlines. If you find a seat, have them put a hold the seat and get the reservation number. Then call your original airline and have them pick up that reservation for you. I've had them pull the "there are no seats available on any airline" card before and called them on it this way. This works even in case of weather, where they don't HAVE TO book you onto another airline, but in the case of extended delays they SHOULD (and will - if you squeak enough!)

 

[Disneychick75]

We haven't had any problems with SW but we have with others, like Delta which I think is terrible. For some reason particular airports, Nashville comes to mind, are infamous for flights being delayed.

To check a flight:
http://www.flightstats.com/go/Media/stats.do
http://flightaware.com/

Flights and airports with frequent delays:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/travel/2...iers-beware-most-chronically-delayed-flights/

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/r...mation/chronically_delayed_flights/index.html

http://www.weather.com/activities/travel/businesstraveler/slideshow/flight_delays.html

 

[DawnM]

We tried. The man saving seats stood up to block us and told us to go sit elsewhere. It got ugly. I told him to move and he refused and was very rude. He said he wasn't moving and he could save the entire row if he wanted to and I couldn't stop him.

The other rows had 2 in them already, exempt for the other row with his other friend in it also saving seats and telling me to go sit somewhere else. We were at the end of the A list.

Dawn

There's NO policy. That means you can save and it also means you can't. They aren't going to get involved. If you want to sit somewhere, just sit.

 

[manning]

I had a similar occurrence a couple of years ago with USAir. I fly out of Philly so I go in knowing that an on-time flight is simply pure luck, so I wasn't surprised to see my 1p flight delayed to 3p due to a mechanical issue. At 2:30p an announcement was made that the maintenance crew was just now on its way and we were delayed until 5:00p. At 4:20p they made an announcement that they were able to secure another aircraft and our gate was now on the other side of the terminal, so we all schlep over there and board. No sooner did we fasten our seatbelts was an announcement made that we needed to deplane as it was a "mix up" and the plane we were sittong on was slated to fly to Dublin, not Orlando. Not a single gate agent was able to give a direct answer, and they wouldn't even entertain the notion of booking us on different flights. I didn't fly out of Philly until 10p that night.

So, what would be wrong flying to Orlando via Dublin.....just kidding.

 

[melissalee]

I've only had one rude flight attendant on SWA. But like another poster said NO airline will accommodate anyone in a hotel room for weather related issues. And if it was me I would be looking immediately on every airline to get out. we have almost missed our last connecting flight but SWA held it for us and other passengers since it was the last flight out of Denver to Oakland for the night. I find they are pretty accommodating

 

[kaytieeldr]

We tried. The man saving seats stood up to block us and told us to go sit elsewhere. It got ugly. I told him to move and he refused and was very rude. He said he wasn't moving and he could save the entire row if he wanted to and I couldn't stop him.

The other rows had 2 in them already, exempt for the other row with his other friend in it also saving seats and telling me to go sit somewhere else. We were at the end of the A list.

Dawn

Was it a connecting flight with passengers staying onboard before anyone at your airport got on? About 45 passengers board in each zone; it seems odd that all 20+ rows were saved or had two passengers on each side already.

 

[ktlm]

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.

Nope, we were going to Orange County to go to Disneyland!

 

[Hanover]

We fly exclusively on Southwest from BWI and have flown with them more times than I can count.

We recently flew Southwest in June, July and August. Our last 3 trips have been terrible. In June we were on the second to last flight out that evening in Orlando. We were told we were delayed an hour. Then told we were delayed two hours. Then we may get out at 2AM, but they couldn't guarantee it. All of our checked bags could not be accessed. They told us they couldn't help book hotels and we wouldn't get any compensation vouchers. I waited in line to change to the first flight out the next day and was able to book a room at Disney and take the Magical Express to the resort and back to MCO the next day. The airport hotel had been fully booked. Our flight was not cancelled due to weather. I was told to keep receipts and I could try and get reimbursed but they couldn't guarantee it.

We flew from BWI to MCO 7/24 and the flight was on time and great with a stop over in Raleigh. When we got to Raleigh, they asked everyone to remain seated who were going on to Orlando to do a head count. We waited and they first counted wrong, so they said to remain seated for another count. Once that was done, the flight attendant in the front motioned for anyone to change seats who wanted to do so and the flight attendant in the row right next to us told us to go ahead and move. As we got up to move, the flight attendant on the intercom condescendingly said, "wow, what great listeners when told to remain seated." She said this on the intercom. The flight attendant next to us couldn't turn to her fast enough and said out loud that she told us to go ahead and change seats. I actually emailed Southwest a complaint from my phone while waiting on our luggage at MCO and said we were embarrassed and that it was unacceptable. We received an email with a flight attendant survey the next day but no other follow up.

We flew home from MCO to BWI on 8/1 and as we were standing in line to board, we were told there was a mechanical issue with a light on the landing gear and that we needed to all sit down while they fixed it. We were supposed to fly out at 8:05. They delayed it to 10:45. They announced that they were going to fly in another plane from Nashville, but they would try and fix the light too. The flight after ours was delayed, but still went out before we did. As we finally got ready to take off at 11:30, the captain said that the other plane had a hole in it's wing and that was why we were delayed. My husband asked the SW desk agent if they were providing any compensation for the delay because the guy in front of us at boarding said he received a $100 LUV voucher for betting another gate agent we wouldn't get out by 10:30 and we were told no vouchers.

We've always loved flying SW and use a SW credit card to charge and pay off everything we can to earn free flights. We have just been very disappointed lately and hope our next flight in October is a better experience.

 

[mm1971]

We have always had good luck and service flying SW. The only issue we had was last February on a connecting flight from the Dominican in Baltimore. We had a 2 hour lay over. Flight was delayed an hour, then two, then when it landed they had to change out a seat for safety reasons. We actually get out about 4 hours after the original schedule departure time. It was February so delays can be expected I guess.

I have a JetBlue flight booked in October. I booked it at a certain time to allow DD to finish the school day before we get to the airport. So far I have gotten two time reschedules and now I need to get DD released early to be able to catch the flight. Not sure if this is a normal thing or if they are changing flight routes or what. Crossing my fingers they don't change it any earlier.

 

[sheetz]

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.

They used to be cheaper but in the last few years I haven't found SW fares to be any cheaper than any other carrier, even taking into account baggage fees. Their main advantage is the free rebooking but it's so rare that I have to do that it's not worth it to me.

 

[imsayin]

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.

I'm guessing this was in early January. Air travel in Chicago was a mess! DD had a lot of friends flying back to school during that time that had delays of several days. We were re-routed coming home from Vegas. Weather was way below freezing, schools closed, etc.

For the poster that mentioned getting a hotel and enjoying the city, it would not have been a good idea at that time. No fun walking around sight seeing in -16 degree weather and Chicago's wind.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

If you're going to fly an airline which doesn't have interline agreements, like Southwest, then you're going to have very few options if your flight is delayed or canceled.

Please note that a direct flight has stops, a non-stop has no stops. There is no such thing as a direct non-stop.

 

[lauradis]

This connecting missing your flight is one of the reasons we like to drive or take non stop flights.

 

[DebbieB]

So, what would be wrong flying to Orlando via Dublin.....just kidding.

Actually a coworker recently flew Minneapolis > Orlando > Ireland

If you're going to fly an airline which doesn't have interline agreements, like Southwest, then you're going to have very few options if your flight is delayed or canceled.

Please note that a direct flight has stops, a non-stop has no stops. There is no such thing as a direct non-stop.

This is a good point. When I used to fly a lot, I had a situation where I had a delayed or cancelled flight on USAirways, they signed my ticket over to Northwest and I got home on time. Southwest can't do that. They did give me and a friend $100 vouchers for a flight delayed 3 hours a couple of years ago. We didn't even have to ask, they made an announcement to come up to the desk and get them.

I think one of the big issues these days on all airlines is they have cut back on flights and almost every flight is full. So if there is a cancellation, there are not many options to move to other flights especially in weather situations.

I try to fly non-stop if possible, even if it costs more. Connections can be a mess. I flew LAX-DTW-PIT on a Delta redeye after D23 last year, the LAX-DTW flight was about 90 minutes late so I missed the connection at DTW. Luckily there was a seat on the next DTW-PIT but it was 3 hours away and ended up being 45 minutes late. I was tired after being at D23 all weekend and got home 4 or 5 hours late. I'm not doing a redeye again, it's torture. I'm hoping American still has the 4:00 non-stop flight from LAX next year when I go to D23. I'll miss the last afternoon but it's winding down then anyway.