Post all SW questions concerns, etc. here...

[Leigh L]

I'm so sorry so many of you are facing this . American did this to us in June and it was so stressful. (But fortunately, they did it the day before - but after boarding passes were issued - so we were at least able to quickly rent a car and drive down since they offered nothing in terms of alternatives that would get us at the same departure and arrival airports or on the same day).

I hope everyone's upcoming flights stay put and those of you who got canceled can find decent alternatives that don't disrupt your trips too much.

 

[focusondisney]

It’s not weather. I’m stuck in Baltimore. All flights to and from FL were cancelled this evening. Jacksonville traffic control (for flight traffic in and out of FL) was extremely short staffed. We were boarded for our flight and the pilot came out to tell us what was going on. All flights for tomorrow are fully sold out to FL with Southwest. The pilot mentioned there were some weather issues in Orlando too, but the main problem was Jacksonville.

I don’t think it is traffic control. Jetblue & Delta flights have been flying as normal, no cancellations. Air traffic control would effect all airlines, not just SW.

 

[EACarlson]

I don't think ATC makes much sense either. While there are some cancellations for the other airlines nowhere near as many as there are for SW today. Some last night with the storms that went through I can understand, but there are a lot this morning. I asked on flyertalk, I'll post here is anyone there comes up with anything.

 

[kelpricer]

We were notified on our way to the airport to leave Disney last night that southwest had moved our 9:35 P.M. to 12:00. Once we got to ticketing for southwest they lined everyone up and that’s when we found out everything was cancelled for the night.
It was impossible to find a hotel and after being on hold with Disney for a half hour I was able to book 2 nights at movies. We only needed one night because we were lucky enough to get a flight out tonight but Disney showed unavailable for just last night it was a mess!!

 

[emsstacey]

I’m supposed to be flying out of fort Myers later today- they were overbooking everything out of mco today. I did see other airlines cancelled and the entire airport basically shut down last night, but then around midnight- flights started coming in again. I wish I knew what happened.

 

[kristenrice]

Yikes! This is VERY concerning! We fly out of GRR next Tuesday and I am flying on points. I have the cash available to make backup plans on another airline (Delta) but I would need to do it NOW. Of course, it would be non-refundable (I can't afford refundable airfare), but I don't really want to spend about $800 if the SWA flights will go as planned. What a mess...

EDIT: UGH...I just looked at our options and it's worse than I thought. The flights on Delta are about $1000 and the seats that are left in the main cabin are scattered middle seats. I am traveling with my 16-year old daughter and the thought of rearranging everything (ADR's, park passes, etc) on top of forking over another $1500 for airfare, just on the chance that something might go awry is probably not the best thing to do at this point. I think right now, I will hope for the best and pray that SWA gets their mess straightened out. If there is a "mishap" when we travel, then I guess I will just have to be prepared to roll with the punches. For now, there is no reason for me to get myself even more anxious than I already am.

 

[EACarlson]

FAA put a couple of ground stops on last night due to lightening. I was watching a softball tournament broadcast from Canaveral and they were shut down for 3 hours. With how tight crew scheduling is, I wouldn't be surprised if they had crew timeouts during the delays, meaning planes and crew weren't getting to where they needed to be for this morning.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

Fantastic. I’m flying out Tuesday morning. I hope they get their crap together before then. Good luck to everyone here!

Thanks. Good luck to you too

 

[emsstacey]

My fort Myers flight home tonight is now delayed. I’m afraid I will never fly southwest again!

 

[Shannon G]

Woke up this morning to find that the flight they had rebooked us on for today (after cancelling last night’s flight) was also cancelled. Nothing on SW to get us anywhere near Orlando until tomorrow night. Ended up booking a flight on Delta out of Bradley to Jacksonville, connecting in Atlanta. We’ll get into JAX at 8:30 tonight, pick up a rental car & drive the 2 hours to Disney. Luckily today was just a resort day, with our first park scheduled for tomorrow.

 

[emsstacey]

Woke up this morning to find that the flight they had rebooked us on for today (after cancelling last night’s flight) was also cancelled. Nothing on SW to get us anywhere near Orlando until tomorrow night. Ended up booking a flight on Delta out of Bradley to Jacksonville, connecting in Atlanta. We’ll get into JAX at 8:30 tonight, pick up a rental car & drive the 2 hours to Disney. Luckily today was just a resort day, with our first park scheduled for tomorrow.

Just FYI- I haven’t been able to find a rental and places that had cars were not allowing one way rentals. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have a lot of trouble getting a rental tonight. There are so many cancellations- everyone was wanting a rental.

 

[Gitelfor]

There continues to be an extraordinarily large number of cancellations, today, by Southwest, with many customers stranded, and without satisfactory resolution.

Tweeted by Southwest, today:

 

[EACarlson]

There continues to be an extraordinarily large number of cancellations, today, by Southwest, with many customers stranded, and without satisfactory resolution.

Tweeted by Southwest, today:

View attachment 611638View attachment 611639

This looks like much more of a SW issue than ATC or Weather. I'm looking at the next 4 hours of flights out of MCO, none of the legacies have a delay of more than 10 minutes. SW looks like half the flights have either been delayed or cancelled. Frontier has some delayed and cancelled, so does JetBlue, but nothing like SW. On the plus side, it looks a whole lot better now than it did this morning.

 

[bookgirl2632]

This looks like much more of a SW issue than ATC or Weather. I'm looking at the next 4 hours of flights out of MCO, none of the legacies have a delay of more than 10 minutes. SW looks like half the flights have either been delayed or cancelled. Frontier has some delayed and cancelled, so does JetBlue, but nothing like SW. On the plus side, it looks a whole lot better now than it did this morning.

I really hope this is cleared up by Tuesday, when I leave. Flights out of BWI to MCO look okay today, but a few have been canceled or delayed. Now I’m going to be watching flights like a hawk the next two days.

 

[Shannon G]

I hope that’s not the case. We have an Executive Aisle reservation through National, one way JAX to MCO, so hopefully they actually hold cars for members.

 

[nicko]

My flight from Buffalo to MCO was abruptly canceled Friday. First they said it's just delayed due to weather and then they said crew delays even though the plane was at the gate. Then 10 minutes latter it was canceled entirely. Then it seemed like other SW flights started getting cancelled.

I got rebooked Saturday evening and now that flight is canceled. As I look at the departure board, only SW is showing cancellations. This is clearly not ATC or weather related. Flightaware is showing huge nationwide cancellations for SW today. I wish the company would be honest with their customers.

Good luck to all of you trying to fly Sunday or Monday. I'm giving up on my long weekend trip.

 

[Gitelfor]

Multiple issues causing flight cancellations

Delayed flights are causing crews to time out, so even if the aircraft is available, there may not be eligible crew.

 

[focusondisney]

I’m afraid I will never fly southwest again!

Luckily I’m not affected this weekend. But between my DH & I, we have over 230,000 points. And I am just about 15K points from getting another CP for next year. But after all the cancellations this summer & now this, I’m seriously wondering if I should even bother. I’ve always been happy with Jetblue, only stopped them because SW had better times for their nonstops. But they’re getting as unreliable as a start up.

 

[EACarlson]

My flight from Buffalo to MCO was abruptly canceled Friday. First they said it's just delayed due to weather and then they said crew delays even though the plane was at the gate. Then 10 minutes latter it was canceled entirely. Then it seemed like other SW flights started getting cancelled.

It wasn't a crew delay, it was a crew timeout. Flight crews and flight attendants are only allowed to be on duty for a certain number of hours straight or in a 24 hour period. In normal times there have extra crews and aren't scheduling things so close that a minor delay forces a clock issue, these are not normal times. If SW knew that they were going to force either a member of the flight crew or cabin crew to go over, they can't operate the flight.

 

[EACarlson]

It looks like there were three different things that happened this weekend that all conspired to make it really bad. Allegedly there was an illegal job action at ATC JAX, that caused a re-route for some flights and some that couldn't take off, supposedly ATC are not happy with the federal vaccine mandate. An illegal job action on the part of SW pilots against the vaccine mandate, their union is now sueing the company. And the always lovely central FL thunderstorms.