Southwest Not Flying

[disneyfreak71]

Did anyone else hear that Southwest can ground a plane if it is not full or close to capacity. My SIL told my DW this was on the news. They like to "tease" my wife so I told her I would ask the friendly DIS peeps.

Thanks

 

[btmfdr]

Did anyone else hear that Southwest can ground a plane if it is not full or close to capacity. My SIL told my DW this was on the news. They like to "tease" my wife so I told her I would ask the friendly DIS peeps.

Thanks

Although possibly true, I doubt they would... My DW flew into KY last week on a plane that holds 153 with a whopping 14 people on board. Based on that information I would suggest that it is highly unlikely to occur.

 

[BillSears]

I've heard alot of people on this board complain about thier flight being changed/canceld because it didn't have enough passengers. But I've never heard them complain that SWA was doing it. Other airlines do do this but I don't think SWA does.

 

[seashoreCM]

Almost no airline will confess this.

But if a plane needs to go out of service, if that plane was for a heavily booked flight they might take a plane from a lightly booked flight to make the trip and the lightly booked flight gets cancelled.

 

[kaytieeldr]

However, as a RULE/PRACTICE, no, airlines will not cancel a flight at the last minute simply because it's relatively empty. Remember, that plane has to be at the destination airport to pick up passengers there and transport them somewhere else. It's gotta get there somehow, and few, if any, airlines will deadhead a plane when they could make SOME money by transporting passengers.

ETA: I remember once flying Midway (wah, I miss Midway!) from Raleigh-Durham to Boston with a total of SIX passengers on the plane.

 

[NotUrsula]

As a general rule, SWA is less likely to do this than most of the legacy carriers. The primary reason is that SWA has on their schedule a lot of "milk runs" where in a service day, the same plane may stop in five cities. If a plane drops out of the route somewhere in the middle, the whole route structure collapses.

Legacy carriers may change equipment and downsize the plane if the flight is not selling, but SWA can't do that because they only fly 737's. However, except for unavoidable weather-related situations, SWA tends to be the best in the domestic air industry at sticking to a schedule once it is published.

 

[DonnaL]

Well said, NotUrsula.........just another reason for consumers to love SW!!!!
We've never had a problem with anything other than weather delays when flying SW.

 

[dsneygirl]

Although possibly true, I doubt they would... My DW flew into KY last week on a plane that holds 153 with a whopping 14 people on board. Based on that information I would suggest that it is highly unlikely to occur.

We came home from Orlando once and everyone on board was in the A line so about 40 people. Like others mentioned the actual aircraft usually has to move on to other cities so it needs to get there no matter how many passengers are on board.

 

[Tammy32]

I have been on a Southwest Airlines flight with just one passenger.

 

[disneyfreak71]

I kinda figured the SIL was messing with her. Thanks for all of the posts.

 

[poohbear7]

In the past on a SWA flight we only had 50 people on board out of Orlando.

 

[BigTigger]

I was on SW from PVD to Islip to MCO in mid-May and our plane had a "mechanical" issue and no part was onsite to fix it before our departure. SW announced that since no one on the flight had a final destination of Islip, we were all re-booked on the flight to BWI and then on to our destinations. Our flight only had about 20 people waiting for it and the BWI flight had about the same, so there was plenty of room for us. The end result was a slightly earlier arrival to MCO and a switch at the much busier BWI versus the usually very quiet Islip. One person going on to MCO complained and was switched to a slightly later direct flight to MCO at no charge. While I'm not a big SW fan, this treatment was a lot better than what United, USAir and Delta have done to me over the years when equipment issues arose.