Southwest and OIA

[Mary T in PA]

Just wondering if the SW lines are always so horrible at the Orlando Int'l Airport?

I was prepared for it but it still shocked me to have to wait in line over 30min just to print my boarding passes and check in my luggage. And the lines were the same downstairs according to the nasty SW woman barking at people to form a line.

I understand we left on a Saturday, so I expected the crowds...but are weekday departures better out of OIA?


Mary

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Wow, I've never had nasty staff from SWA but long lines are pretty common in all of MCO.
Did you try the curbside check in area? We always look out there as sometimes the inside line is long but the outside is short and worth tipping for.

 

[helenk]

I was shocked at the line when we left to come back to Philly on Saturday June 20th. I've never seen it that bad before and I've travelled on Saturdays before. The line went on forever. Our flight was at 1:20 and we got to the airport just about 2 hours prior, unfortunately (or really fortunately) our flight was delayed or we would have had to run to the gate. Getting through security was a breeze it was the long line with Southwest that took forever.
This is the first time we've returned this early though, we usually get a flight after 5:00pm so maybe leaving later in the day is better.

 

[Mary T in PA]

Wow, I've never had nasty staff from SWA but long lines are pretty common in all of MCO.
Did you try the curbside check in area? We always look out there as sometimes the inside line is long but the outside is short and worth tipping for.

The curbside line was so long, we had no idea where the end of that line was - the lady said all the SW lines were running 30min but it took us about 40min to weave our way thru it. After we did get thru the luggage boarding pass line, it stretched clear back and around that circular plant decoration(I think it was something plant like, it was chaotic). It seemed like even seasoned SW travelers weren't too happy that day..it was Sat June 27th around 9:30am. We didn't get out of the line until 10:10 and then it took a bit to get thru TSA.

THat's why I wondered if it was just due to more heavy weekend travel traffic or if SW was always this chaotic every day.

Luckily the flight attendants made up for it, they were wonderful on the flight back home.

Mary

 

[disneyfaninaz]

As with any airport, there are busy times and not so busy times. SWA lines always seem to be long in Orlando, however, they do move very fast. MCO is a very busy airport. That is why they suggest arriving 2-3 hours before your flight. If the check in lines won't delay you, the horrendous security lines will.

 

[swabikedude]

Just wondering if the SW lines are always so horrible at the Orlando Int'l Airport?

I was prepared for it but it still shocked me to have to wait in line over 30min just to print my boarding passes and check in my luggage. And the lines were the same downstairs according to the nasty SW woman barking at people to form a line.

Wow - Mary, I apologize for any rude staff. It's definitely NOT the norm. In fact, I flew out of Orlando about a week before you did - the lines were just as busy when I flew out - it took me about 30 minutes. The goal of our lines @ Southwest is to make sure Customers never wait more than 20 minutes. That was an unusual circumstance. Normally they move fairly quickly.

I encourage you to let us know by submitting some feedback so it may be addressed. I mean, how else would we know if someone has been rude to a passenger, unless that passenger tells us...so we would want to make this up to you.

On the other side of things - Disneyworld Guests provide us with plenty of Customers and a very small airport to handle them in. I know the Orlando airport is fairly large, but the space we have in the airport for Southwest facilities is never quite large enough. You can always check into the Skycap option outside, as the wait is normally not as long. And - yes the weekends can be fairly busier.

Glad your flight attendants made up for the rude service...that is always a great lasting impression, right? But our Orlando staff does a very good job in working through the challenges that they face on a daily basis.

Thanks again for flying with Southwest! Hope to see you again sometime!

 

[Lewisc]

That's the reason MCO and SW suggests arriving 1 1/2 -2 hours before your flight. That's the reason why MCO wants DME buses arriving approximately 2 hours before the guests scheduled flight time. The previous poster said SW aims for a wait of 20 minutes or less, an extra 10 minutes for a passenger arriving at the "wrong time" isn't the end of the world.

It will help if SW is able to include additional resorts in Disney's RAC program.

 

[Mary T in PA]

I was shocked at the line when we left to come back to Philly on Saturday June 20th. I've never seen it that bad before and I've travelled on Saturdays before. The line went on forever. Our flight was at 1:20 and we got to the airport just about 2 hours prior, unfortunately (or really fortunately) our flight was delayed or we would have had to run to the gate. Getting through security was a breeze it was the long line with Southwest that took forever.
This is the first time we've returned this early though, we usually get a flight after 5:00pm so maybe leaving later in the day is better.

The family ahead of us did get rescheduled.. they were at the kiosk beside us and the worker said there was no way they would make their flight.

I realize that Orlando is a busy airport as I fly in and out of there several times a year. I have flown in and out at all different times, but have never encountered anything quite like what I did on Saturday in terms of neverending lines.

I just feel SW could do a better job. There could have been more workers behind the counter and several kiosks weren't operating this past Saturday morning.

Mary

 

[DebbieB]

I checked in around 5:00 on June 20 and probably half the kiosks were out of service. Then finally someone came out and turned them on. They weren't down, they just didn't have people working behind the counter to take the luggage so they put them out of service. I normally would have gone outside and used curbside but my friend was in a long line at Jet Blue so I figured I would wait.

 

[Mary T in PA]

Wow - Mary, I apologize for any rude staff. It's definitely NOT the norm. In fact, I flew out of Orlando about a week before you did - the lines were just as busy when I flew out - it took me about 30 minutes. The goal of our lines @ Southwest is to make sure Customers never wait more than 20 minutes. That was an unusual circumstance. Normally they move fairly quickly.

I encourage you to let us know by submitting some feedback so it may be addressed. I mean, how else would we know if someone has been rude to a passenger, unless that passenger tells us...so we would want to make this up to you.

On the other side of things - Disneyworld Guests provide us with plenty of Customers and a very small airport to handle them in. I know the Orlando airport is fairly large, but the space we have in the airport for Southwest facilities is never quite large enough. You can always check into the Skycap option outside, as the wait is normally not as long. And - yes the weekends can be fairly busier.

Glad your flight attendants made up for the rude service...that is always a great lasting impression, right? But our Orlando staff does a very good job in working through the challenges that they face on a daily basis.

Thanks again for flying with Southwest! Hope to see you again sometime!

I took the rude worker as someone who was probably grouched at earlier by another customer. We didn't say anything at all to her, it just kinda unnerved me. Several other folks were questioning her and she was also making sure that everyone was within the 4hr flight window, she had a tough job and one I don't envy.

I think what surprised me is when we did get to the front of the line waiting our turn, there was several kiosks turned off/out of service. I had hoped there would have been more workers and kiosks running.. that would have helped the line move a bit more quickly. but knowing my luck, technology was probably acting up and not working like it should and that's why more kiosks weren't running.


And I do agree with you regarding the airport - it's extremely busy year round and definitely not big enough to handle all the traffic coming in worldwide. Unfortunately the sky cap line was the longest I've ever seen, or else I would have done that, but the woman handling the line said that both lines were the same wait time.

Mary

 

[Donnainnj]

The last time we used SW at MCO we stayed in the airport hotel. Our flight was at 7:25am and we got to the line just before 6am. Well it took us over 40 minutes to finish, and they told us our luggage might not make it on the plane and made us sign off. I would have been ok with it, but there was only one or two people checking in until 6:30am, then more lines opened up and we started really moving, in ten minutes we covered twice the ground we had covered in the previous 30 minutes. If you have to be there so early, why aren't they there to help you? Well we are going SW again in August, and hoping we picked better times of the day to fly. We usually do use the skycaps but i'm not sure they were available this day/time.
Donna

 

[CarolAnnB]

We just flew out of Orlando on Monday 6/29. We got to the SW counter around 4:30 and there was no one in line!! I was shocked! There were 2 men at the counter and that was it. The other airlines we passed, Pace and Virgin, had lines with hundreds in it so I was worried but was certainly pleasantly surprised when we got to SW. The agents were friendly and funny, as were the flight attendants. The rude people were the passengers who did not seem to understand "line up numerically" and thought if they had A26,27,28 they could get on the plane FIRST. When the gate agent said they had to wait, they moved to the side and let about 5 people go by, then tried to get on again! He again said they had to wait and they started saying how no one had ever made them wait for their number. Yeah, right! I have flown SW several times since they started that new numerical lineup, and we have always gotten in line in order. When we landed, these are the same women who stand up to get off after the flight attendant says there is a medical emergency and EMTs are coming on the plane, so stay seated until she gives you the all clear.

 

[LisaS]

One of the problems we've noticed in the check-in line for SWA at MCO is that many of the customers don't understand that it's OK to move to a kiosk as soon as it's free. They wait until a SWA employee notices that there are empty kiosks and the line isn't moving and start waving people over. I think during busy times, SWA needs to have someone stationed at the head of the line directing people to open kiosks since some of them won't budge until a SWA employee tells them it's OK.

 

[DebbieB]

One of the problems we've noticed in the check-in line for SWA at MCO is that many of the customers don't understand that it's OK to move to a kiosk as soon as it's free. They wait until a SWA employee notices that there are empty kiosks and the line isn't moving and start waving people over. I think during busy times, SWA needs to have someone stationed at the head of the line directing people to open kiosks since some of them won't budge until a SWA employee tells them it's OK.

That's a good point. When I was standing in line, we kept pointing to the first person in line where the empty ones were. They are hard to see from the head of the line.

 

[WillCAD]

I trend to fly in the off-seasons, so I've rarely had to wait mnore than 15 minutes in the SWA lines. I did have to wait about 30 minutes on a very busy day once, but that was a ratity.

I guess I've been lucky at MCO, because I've never had to wait more than 20 minutes in the security line, either. I have seen a few long lines, but they moved fast enough to get me through in less than 20.

 

[goofy4tink]

I have to say that I had some of the best customer service at MCO (OIA) with SW a few years ago. I had an issue, completely my doing, and the CS reps at SW were wonderful. I kept getting frustrated, they calmed me down. It took close to an hour to resolve my issue...of course it wouldn't have taken so long but the first rep I got didn't really understand my situation, but at least she was pleasant and tried to be as helpful as she could be.

But once again, we see the need to get to MCO at that two hr. mark. Too many people think they are going to be fine arriving an hour before their flights...and that's opening them up to a really bad experience!!!

 

[Mary T in PA]

One of the problems we've noticed in the check-in line for SWA at MCO is that many of the customers don't understand that it's OK to move to a kiosk as soon as it's free. They wait until a SWA employee notices that there are empty kiosks and the line isn't moving and start waving people over. I think during busy times, SWA needs to have someone stationed at the head of the line directing people to open kiosks since some of them won't budge until a SWA employee tells them it's OK.

I will say that there was a SW staff person directing kiosk traffic. I didn't realize they were even doing that until we got to the front of the line and I was trying to see if there was an open kiosk. THat's when I saw several kiosks not working.

This is why I asked if maybe a weekday was more offtime than the weekend as I realize that weekend travel anywhere is heavy. I'm just not familiar with SW and wondered if weekday travel isn't quite as chaotic and hectic.


Mary

 

[pamjb]

I don't think weekday vs weekend really matters. At least in my experience. I always use curbside at MCO and have never (and I mean never) encountered a line of more than 3 people. And that is when the inside lines of been loooong.
I wonder if maybe there was a system problem that caused the long lines both inside and at curbside.

 

[Manda]

We flew out of MCO on Saturday, June 13th, and it was the worst I'd ever seen the Southwest line. Normally, the line looks bad, but moves pretty quickly. This line looked bad and was bad. We usually fly off season though, but almost always Saturday morning. I did attempt to fly home on a Thursday once (which ended up being canceled and then tried again Saturday, LOL) and there was absolutely no line. Although, the security lines were twice as long on Thursday as they were the following Saturday. You can't win.

And I encountered an unnecessarily rude SWA employee there, too - wonder if it was the same one? I was taken aback because I've never, ever encountered a rude SWA employee (that I can recall). I clicked the wrong button on my screen and she made a big deal about it and told everyone around me that they'd have to wait because she had to clean up "this mess". It was kinda humiliating. And it only took like 20 seconds to fix, so it was kinda over the top to make an issue about it.

 

[NJR]

One of the problems we've noticed in the check-in line for SWA at MCO is that many of the customers don't understand that it's OK to move to a kiosk as soon as it's free. They wait until a SWA employee notices that there are empty kiosks and the line isn't moving and start waving people over. I think during busy times, SWA needs to have someone stationed at the head of the line directing people to open kiosks since some of them won't budge until a SWA employee tells them it's OK.

You would think that you should be able to step up to a kiosk as it opens up, but when we were checking in on SWA at OIA one day last month, there was one agent (who happened to be one of the agents closest to the "front of the line") who made it clear that she expected people to wait until they were called upon before stepping up. Every time her kiosk opened, she seemed, IMO, to make a big deal about keeping her head down and looking busy fiddling with something on her desk and when she would signal for the next person in line she would say quite loudly "Thanks so much for waiting instead of just walking right up". Of course, it could just have been her own hang-up, but seeing as how she was closest to the front of the line (and that she would say it so loudly), I'm sure it discouraged a lot of people from walking up to any empty kiosk while she was there.