Southwest Rapid Rewards - Southwest Delay Policy

I called Customer Relations to complain about the poor way a delay and cancellation was handled today.

To make a long story short, I was told that they have a policy that if your delay was between 1-3 hours they can give you a $50 Southwest gift certificate.This was after calling back twice - the first rep brushed me off, the second said to fax or mail in a letter, and after I had additional information from the WN website that was contradictory to what the other reps had said was in their system about the cancellation, I called a third time and this rep offered the $50 cert without making me waste my time writing a letter.

I asked about using it online and was told they had not developed an electronic version yet, but it could be used with an online reservation after you had it in hand by mailing it in with a copy of your itinerary and asking for a $50 refund to the credit card used...

I had not heard this before about there being a specific dollar amount authorized for a specific hour window for a delay..

I guess I would need to know more about the reason for the delay before I could offer an opinion. I have not had a delay of more then an hour on WN for several years, but if it was for weather or a valid reason I did not expect or solicit compensation.

...........

I am just curious....

Who "told" you that there is a policy?

I have never heard of this "policy".
I was wondering the same thing. I've never heard about a policy for compensating delayed passengers either, unless it was due to an IDB.

My flight last month was delayed 1.5 hours due to mechanical trouble
and I did not expect any compensation other than mabey a free drink. When I asked I was looked at like I was a bum asking for a free cup of coffee.
I ponied up my four coupons and forgot about it.

I have never heard of this "policy".

I wouldn't be surprised if Customer Relations has guidelines for compensation to offer for certain classes of complaint letters. But I am most surprised that they would share that information outside the company. Regardless, what Customer Relations can offer and what the gate agents can offer are two different things.

My flight from PHX - PDX was sort of delayed by 6+ hrs.

1st plane - mechanical that was supposed to take 15-20 min. to fix, ended up offloading plane and to another.

2nd plane (after 30 min getting it set up), flew 1 hour and then returned to PHX for a hydralic problem. Pilot tried to drop to LAS and switch planes there, but WN nixed that.

3rd plane left PHX after about 30 min to change planes again, and finally got to PDX about 2:00am

Guess I should call to see if I can get a $50 credit. ???

Guess I should call to see if I can get a $50 credit. ???

I recommend a letter, which will probably get even better results.

It's probably a guideline. I've never heard of it. The third rep probably saw that you called two other times and figured lets give him something since he/she so upset over it. I can assure you a Customer is not compensated every time they experience a delay.

I am just curious....

Who "told" you that there is a policy?

I have never heard of this "policy".

The Customer Relations rep told me that there was this particular policy..that if the customer were delayed between 1-3 hours, she could offer a $50 gift certificate as compensation..

Here's the whole story for those who wanted more information...Flight 652 from Las Vegas to San Diego was supposed to leave at 8:10AM. The website and flight departure boards at the airport all said that the flight was on time. At about 7:30AM the gate agents announced a 1 hour delay; incoming flight from Kansas City was in the air and would be late arriving. Well, that flight was scheduled to leave Kansas City at 4:40AM local time (Las Vegas local time). So they knew much earlier than 7:30AM that it was going to be late in arriving. The gate agents blamed "weather" for the delay. Around 8:30 they announced that our flight was cancelled. They said the flight from KC was cancelled even though they said it was in the air and had a weather delay. We were told to schlep across the C terminal to another gate and we'd be rebooked on flight 1214 at 10:05AM. Gate agent there (who said she was a supervisor) said that Flight 562 from Kansas City had a mechanical in the air and would unload its passengers at Las Vegas and then be ferried up to Sacramento for repair. So far, conflicting stories. Reservations also had conflicting stories on just what happened in their system. In my opinion, very poor information from Southwest; they could at least have the same story...From what I could get from the gate agent, and the info that Customer Relations had, this was a mechanical and not weather related although the originbal delay they sited might have been weather related.


Flight 1214 pulled back from the gate on time but sat on the taxiway for 30+ minutes and was 30 minutes late arriving into San Diego, givng me an almost 2:30 delay which was due to a mechanical.

Perhaps the "policy" only applies to mechanicals, and not weather dealys..

I don't fly Delta all that often, but I have received unsolicited vouchers of $50-100 mailed to me for mechanical delays that were in the 2-3 hour range...perhaps this is Southwest's version of that (although I had to complain about it)...I booked an Award ticket on AA last month for my wife in F; her flight out of DFW on the outbound was delayed 4 hours; she got an e-mail from AA saying that they were sorry for the inconvenience and were returning 6000 miles to her AAdvantage account out of the 45000 paid for the roundtrip . This was also unsolicited.

Obviously, delays happen. My main gripe was the way it was handled by Southwest. I felt they should have listed the flight as delayed much earlier, and that they gave misinformation to the passengers. That was my main complaint. If it had just been a delay and they had handled it better, I probably would not have complained.

Here's the whole story for those who wanted more information...Flight 652 from Las Vegas to San Diego was supposed to leave at 8:10AM. The website and flight departure boards at the airport all said that the flight was on time. At about 7:30AM the gate agents announced a 1 hour delay; incoming flight from Kansas City was in the air and would be late arriving. Well, that flight was scheduled to leave Kansas City at 4:40AM local time (Las Vegas local time). So they knew much earlier than 7:30AM that it was going to be late in arriving. The gate agents blamed "weather" for the delay. Around 8:30 they announced that our flight was cancelled. They said the flight from KC was cancelled even though they said it was in the air and had a weather delay. We were told to schlep across the C terminal to another gate and we'd be rebooked on flight 1214 at 10:05AM. Gate agent there (who said she was a supervisor) said that Flight 562 from Kansas City had a mechanical in the air and would unload its passengers at Las Vegas and then be ferried up to Sacramento for repair. So far, conflicting stories. Reservations also had conflicting stories on just what happened in their system. In my opinion, very poor information from Southwest; they could at least have the same story...From what I could get from the gate agent, and the info that Customer Relations had, this was a mechanical and not weather related although the originbal delay they sited might have been weather related.

Oh that's it? That's just a case of SWA lying to you. Very common thing. For some reason they like to lie to their customers in cases like this rather than tell the truth, I don't know why. What really probably happened is that there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with the plane coming from MCI. Instead they needed a plane for a completely different flight that had a mechanical problem and they decided to take YOUR plane for a few reasons:

1. Because it was a short flight
2. Because there was another LAS-SAN flight coming very soon
3. (and also probably) because that plane was coming straight back to LAS after going to SAN in the schedule, therefore cancelling this flight would not disrupt the scheduling down the line. Also there obviously would be another flight leaving SAN-LAS a couple hours later, therefore their travel would not be too disrupted either.

My guess is that they also BS'ed you that the plane you were supposed to be on was being ferried to Sacramento to be repaired. As far as I know, there is no maintenance operation at Sacramento, and I'd be pretty damn sure there IS a maintenence operation in LAS where it would be fixed. My guess is that YOUR plane that they cancelled was needed for the Sacramento flight because something was wrong with that plane. They took your plane, gave it to the SMF route, told you there was weather/mechanical (depending on who you talk to because they don't corroborate their stories), and gave you the boot. Happened to me as well a couple years ago, and like you, I was more pissed that they blatently lied to my face about 10 times (by several different people) than I was pissed that my flight was cancelled. After going up the chain of command and demanding to find out why I was lied to, I only finally confirmed my suspicions after getting to the Station Manager level, and then only after a few lies from him as well. :rolleyes:

You might check the cancellation history of that flight. There's a Federal (FAA?) website where you can go and see how often its been cancelled (and delayed) in the history of the flight. The flight I was on that this happened to me had been cancelled something like 20% of the time. I noticed a couple other flights that it happens to, always between two big cities with lots of frequency. What seems IMO to happen is that SWA will choose a flight that is basically a safety net type flight for them such as the above flights. Once it has been cancelled a lot and has terrible stats, they will then cancel that flight number out of their schedule for good and make a new flight with a new flight number. I don't know if that improves their stats or just buries their old flights with high % of cancellations or what.

But IMHO, that is the reason you were being lied to. :td:
Note to SWA: Just telling the truth would be so much more customer friendly!! :rolleyes:

.........

Once it has been cancelled a lot and has terrible stats, they will then cancel that flight number out of their schedule for good and make a new flight with a new flight number.

I have read in the WSJ that this is a general industry practice. However, I have not seen it in the LAX-OAK market. One afternoon flight that was terrible (>70% delay) staying the schedule for years. Yet Southwest changed the numbers on early morning flights that were virtually 0% delayed.

The Customer Relations rep told me that there was this particular policy..that if the customer were delayed between 1-3 hours, she could offer a $50 gift certificate as compensation..

Here's the whole story for those who wanted more information...Flight 652 from Las Vegas to San Diego was supposed to leave at 8:10AM. The website and flight departure boards at the airport all said that the flight was on time. At about 7:30AM the gate agents announced a 1 hour delay; incoming flight from Kansas City was in the air and would be late arriving. Well, that flight was scheduled to leave Kansas City at 4:40AM local time (Las Vegas local time). So they knew much earlier than 7:30AM that it was going to be late in arriving. The gate agents blamed "weather" for the delay. Around 8:30 they announced that our flight was cancelled. They said the flight from KC was cancelled even though they said it was in the air and had a weather delay.

Well, Southwest 652 was not cancelled between Kansas City and Las Vegas on 5/3, so it does sound like one of the agents was lying to you or did not have his/her facts straight. The MCI-LAS flight was delayed 1 hr, but it sounds like Southwest needed the aircraft in Sacramento and thus your LAS-SAN flight was cancelled and the aircraft was ferried from LAS-SMF as Southwest 8501.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA562/history/20060503/1256Z/KMCI/KLAS

Now, it is possible some m/x issue came up in the air and they were going to ferry the aircraft to SMF for repairs, but doesn't it seem more likely they would just fix it at LAS if that were the case??

BTW, I would not expect unsolicited compensation. Family members recently had a 9 + hr maintenance cancellation/rebooking delay on another carrier, and no compensation was offered apart from a food voucher. However, contacting customer relations with a legitimate complaint almost always yields some sort of result, even if it is just a goodwill voucher around $50 as you were offered.

There are times we are trying to arrange for an aircraft swap. When that happens the plane can go out on time.
LAS is a pretty large station that has the ability at times to rearrange planes. Doesn't always work out, but at times it can.

We may have known much earlier than 7:30AM that it was going to be late in arriving, but that doesn't always mean we aren't going to try to rearrange a few things.
Behind the scenes there can be many people trying to figure out another plan of action.
(Ground Crew is quite amazing at times ;) )

When you hear the "gate change" announcements, that is usually when we are rearranging our puzzle :)

It may have been they were not exactly trying to give misinformation as much as they were trying to figure out a way to still get the plane to leave ontime. On time is a major concern for SWA.

I, too, have experienced WN's POOR communications about delays. Typically, planes don't magically appear somewhere. Having worked for AA at DFW, I am totally aware of swapping aircraft. However, WN seems to do a poor job of communicating their intentions.

While I don't advocate telling every detail to the passengers, WN operations needs to do a MUCH better job at informing the gate agents of what exactly they are planning to do. I would also expect the agents to tell the TRUTH when specifically asked. Deliberately lying to the customer is NEVER acceptable.

While I don't advocate telling every detail to the passengers, WN operations needs to do a MUCH better job at informing the gate agents of what exactly they are planning to do. I would also expect the agents to tell the TRUTH when specifically asked. Deliberately lying to the customer is NEVER acceptable.

You're dreaming, my friend. This is the airline that posts expected departure times that are 5-10 minutes after the arrival time, when the inbound is late. (I have seen it many times when I used to fly WN. In fact, I have seen expected departure times earlier than the inbound arrival time.)

I think their policy is "hear no delay, see no delay, speak no delay." (Oh, and then once the aircraft is off the ground, erase the departure time from the web site.) Unfortunately the customers are smarter than that.

I, too, have experienced WN's POOR communications about delays. Typically, planes don't magically appear somewhere. Having worked for AA at DFW, I am totally aware of swapping aircraft. However, WN seems to do a poor job of communicating their intentions.

I have noticed countless times that WN will show flight as on-time even when there is no way it can leave on-time. Got to the gate and it was still showing on-time even though on the monitors they did not list an inbound for our gate. Asked at the gate and they said it was on-time. 10 minutes prior to departure and still no airplane, gate agent comes on and says the plane is being towed in to the gate and should be there at 9:30 (our scheduled departure time), with departure at 9:45. In the end we left at 10:00. 30 min delay is no big deal really, but why lie and claim the flight is on-time when you know otherwise.

Deliberately lying to the customer is NEVER acceptable.

That's what I said 2 years ago in THIS POST (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=802985&postcount=27), but it sure seems like they are still up to their same old tricks/lies..................

I agree, probably the customer doesn't need to know everything if the customer doesn't ask, but if the customer straight up asks about why the flight is delayed/cancelled and gets lied right to their face, that's just pretty poor and something I never thought a SWA employee would ever do until it happened to me............several times in that one day.

OK, now it makes more sense with the above info from Flyertalkers who weren't liers...

The WN website on Wednesday showed Flight 562 landing in Las Vegas at Gate C-5 (somewhere around 8:45AM). Gate C-5 was where Flight 1214 was leaving from at 10:05. While I was waiting there for Flight 1214 after checking in, an aircraft pulled in, unloaded passengers, and then was pushed back out without anyone boarding. I thought that was odd. So obviously, it was Flight 562 letting off the Las Vegas passengers and then was moved over to another gate for the LAS-SMF run.

So I suppose it could be that there is no policy tocompensate passengers with a 1-3 delay, but perhaps I was getting too close to figuring out what was going on and that offering me $50 would end the matter...

WNLuvsYou, you could probably look up the info from Wednesday for Flight 562....did the aircraft substitute on the LAS-SMF run that day? How do you look up where that aircraft would have flown the rest of the day if it had gone to SAN as scheduled?

FYI, the loads on both those flights (562 and 1214) were light enough that they could both be combined on 1214 and still have empty middle seats...

Oh that's it? That's just a case of SWA lying to you. Very common thing. For some reason they like to lie to their customers in cases like this rather than tell the truth, I don't know why. What really probably happened is that there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with the plane coming from MCI. Instead they needed a plane for a completely different flight that had a mechanical problem and they decided to take YOUR plane for a few reasons:

1. Because it was a short flight
2. Because there was another LAS-SAN flight coming very soon
3. (and also probably) because that plane was coming straight back to LAS after going to SAN in the schedule, therefore cancelling this flight would not disrupt the scheduling down the line. Also there obviously would be another flight leaving SAN-LAS a couple hours later, therefore their travel would not be too disrupted either.

My guess is that they also BS'ed you that the plane you were supposed to be on was being ferried to Sacramento to be repaired. As far as I know, there is no maintenance operation at Sacramento, and I'd be pretty damn sure there IS a maintenence operation in LAS where it would be fixed. My guess is that YOUR plane that they cancelled was needed for the Sacramento flight because something was wrong with that plane. They took your plane, gave it to the SMF route, told you there was weather/mechanical (depending on who you talk to because they don't corroborate their stories), and gave you the boot. Happened to me as well a couple years ago, and like you, I was more pissed that they blatently lied to my face about 10 times (by several different people) than I was pissed that my flight was cancelled. After going up the chain of command and demanding to find out why I was lied to, I only finally confirmed my suspicions after getting to the Station Manager level, and then only after a few lies from him as well. :rolleyes:

You might check the cancellation history of that flight. There's a Federal (FAA?) website where you can go and see how often its been cancelled (and delayed) in the history of the flight. The flight I was on that this happened to me had been cancelled something like 20% of the time. I noticed a couple other flights that it happens to, always between two big cities with lots of frequency. What seems IMO to happen is that SWA will choose a flight that is basically a safety net type flight for them such as the above flights. Once it has been cancelled a lot and has terrible stats, they will then cancel that flight number out of their schedule for good and make a new flight with a new flight number. I don't know if that improves their stats or just buries their old flights with high % of cancellations or what.

But IMHO, that is the reason you were being lied to. :td:
Note to SWA: Just telling the truth would be so much more customer friendly!! :rolleyes:

The best gate agent lie is when there is no aircraft at the gate, it's 5 minutes before departure, and the gate agent still tells you to your face that it is going out on time..Never had that happen except with Southwest..multiple times...

I hope that 4thplz doesn't do that in Baltimore...

There are times we are trying to arrange for an aircraft swap. When that happens the plane can go out on time.
LAS is a pretty large station that has the ability at times to rearrange planes. Doesn't always work out, but at times it can.

We may have known much earlier than 7:30AM that it was going to be late in arriving, but that doesn't always mean we aren't going to try to rearrange a few things.
Behind the scenes there can be many people trying to figure out another plan of action.
(Ground Crew is quite amazing at times ;) )

When you hear the "gate change" announcements, that is usually when we are rearranging our puzzle :)

It may have been they were not exactly trying to give misinformation as much as they were trying to figure out a way to still get the plane to leave ontime. On time is a major concern for SWA.

I asked the "supervisor" at Gate C-5 when getting a new boarding pass why they didn't pull a new aircraft out of the maintenance hanger in LAS to substitute on our flight and the answer was, "do you really think we have any extra aircraft?" Perhaps next time I should ask, "why don't you pull an aircraft off another route, just like you did to us?" I wonder if she would have had the balls to admit that we were being screwed on purpose and that they were using our aircraft to replace one on the LAS-SMF run. Probably not, since she was the one that claimed it was going to Sacramento empty...

Digging a little deeper (using the flight tracking website posted above), it looks like there actually were 2 SWA flights that left around the same time from LAS-SMF:

SWA8501 9:35 - 10:42 AM (737-300)
SWA764: 10:03 - 11:09 AM (737-700)

Flight 764 was supposed to run from 9:40 - 11:10 AM. The SWA8501 plane was probably your plane since the MCI-LAS plane was also a 737-300. Why it went to SMF is anybody's guess. I tried to look up SWA's Maintenance locations, but I couldn't find much good info (except that there are 10 SWA maintenance locations and the ones I could find and confirm are DAL, PHX, MDW, and ALB.........although that last location seems strange so I'm not sure its correct). I couldn't find one in SMF, and I would surely assume there's one in LAS, but who knows. It does seem awful fishy they'd send the plane tp SMF for repair when they could do it in LAS. My hunch would be that a plane broke in SMF and they needed a plane there ASAP so they found one (in LAS) that would create the least amount of havoc down the line the rest of the day.............................and that plane just happened to be the one you were scheduled to be on. I agree the lies aren't neccesary in instances such as this, but I assume that's what they teach them in Gate Agent School as the majority of the time it probably diffuses customer's tempers better if they lie to you rather than tell you they borrowed your plane because another flight is more important than yours.

FYI, the loads on both those flights (562 and 1214) were light enough that they could both be combined on 1214 and still have empty middle seats...

"Combining" flights on the same route when both are less than half full happens ALL THE TIME.

Probably every experienced passenger has seen it multiple times. The mythical weather delays (when other planes were able to get out at the same time) and the sudden "mechanicals" and the shifting explanations sure happen a LOT on routes where there is frequent service and the "combining" can occur.

You can see the furtive looks on the faces of the GAs when they are talking about the "delay," so you know something is up.

Has any airline ever admitted doing this? Is this considered legitimate? Do they think we are all morons out here?

It has often happened to my wife out of DC coming to ORD on United, to the point where we won't fly UA if we possibly can avoid it.

I agree. All airlines have employees (or policy?) that try to hide things such as combining 2 light flights that depart 1.5 hr apart and either use the aircraft for another flight or just don't fly the route. It would be better if they would announce the truth and gives some compensation to the passengers. But I expect they may have a "revolt" by a few who "demand" they fly on the SCHEDULED flight.

Like others, my biggest gripe is when an inbound is shown on monitors as arriving 45 min late and the gate agent still tells everyone it will be on time. When pointing this out, they give lots of excuses like they will use another aircraft or the monitors are wrong. Just be honest and give us your best info you have at the time.

I just called Customer Relations to ask for an update on what they have in theiir system since the gate agents appeared to be lying sacks of sh*t and they offered to send me another $50 "Token Of Love" based on the Gate Agents being lying sacks of sh*t, which was $5 more than that part of the ticket including taxes...At first he told me that they had a policy of $50 for a 1-3 hour delay, but then put me on hold & came back & told me he'd send me another $50 certificate. I will give him points though, because after I had been on hold about 5 minutes, I had to put him on hold to take another call that lasted about 5 minutes and when I went back, he was still there and I didn't have to call again & start from scratch. So for that, I give Customer Relations a thumbs up.

If I have time I will mail them a letter as he suggested so they can "follow up" on the situation, like they're really going to do anything about it..

That's what I said 2 years ago in THIS POST (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=802985&postcount=27), but it sure seems like they are still up to their same old tricks/lies..................

I agree, probably the customer doesn't need to know everything if the customer doesn't ask, but if the customer straight up asks about why the flight is delayed/cancelled and gets lied right to their face, that's just pretty poor and something I never thought a SWA employee would ever do until it happened to me............several times in that one day.

Absolutely! I was just agreeing with your earlier comments (didn't realize it was 2 years ago, though!).

Just to add more fun to this 2 year old discussion, I actually had the opposite happen to me one day in SEA. The airport monitors had the flight delayed by 20 minutes. So, I naturally concluded that there would be a 45-60 minute delay. About 30 minutes before the flight, I decided to go down to the gate and it was posted on-time!! The GA's weren't even aware of the original delay posting on the airport monitors (which are posted with info directly from the airline's own reservation system). The plane actually left 5 minutes EARLY that night!

I agree. All airlines have employees (or policy?) that try to hide things such as combining 2 light flights that depart 1.5 hr apart and either use the aircraft for another flight or just don't fly the route.

Southwest will only combine or cancel flights if they are short an aircraft. Probably it's the same for other airlines.

You raise the critical point about customer reactions. Take a typical situtation in which the station is short a plane (mechanical, crew missing, or whatever). The operations people will rearrange resources so as to minimize the total cost to the company, which generally also means minimizes the number of people inconvenienced.

Now put yourself in the position of a gate agent. The ops people made a decision to rearrange things without consulting you, and you probably don't have all the information on which the decision was based. Do you want to try to explain this decision to irate passengers? Or would you rather just say it's a mechanical problem, which is probably correct but certainly incomplete.

I have a lot of sympathy for gate agents who simplify their answers to these questions. Of course they should tell you the full story if you ask politely and give every appearance of being able to handle the truth. If somebody who belongs on Airline is listening in, I wouldn't expect to be told the full story if it's too complex. :p

If I were a gate agent, I would say that the operations people cancelled the flight because they were short of resources and this particular flight drew the short straw. But it's tough to tell upset people that your management decided they were the least important customers in the airport on this particular day. No matter how true that is.

Absolutely! I was just agreeing with your earlier comments (didn't realize it was 2 years ago, though!).

If anybody's interested here's the full thread from 2 years ago that is somewhat similar to this one:

Any way to get on an earlier flight w/out paying upgrade? (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=85647)

I have a lot of sympathy for gate agents who simplify their answers to these questions. Of course they should tell you the full story if you ask politely and give every appearance of being able to handle the truth. If somebody who belongs on Airline is listening in, I wouldn't expect to be told the full story if it's too complex. :p

If I were a gate agent, I would say that the operations people cancelled the flight because they were short of resources and this particular flight drew the short straw. But it's tough to tell upset people that your management decided they were the least important customers in the airport on this particular day. No matter how true that is.

Agree 100% ^^^^

If put in their shoes, I'd probably say the same thing. But when pressed, it would be nice if somebody would tell me the truth. I had to go thru 2 gates agents and 2 supervisors before the Station Manager finally confessed and confirmed that I was right and I had basically been lied to. BTW, I was told "for your safety we have cancelled your flight because your plane has mechanical problems and is inoperable" when I can clearly see with my own eyes on the monitors that the flight (same flight number coming from the previous city) was in fact enroute from that previous city. If it's in the sky flying at that moment, it can't be too inoperable, right?

Oh that's it? That's just a case of SWA lying to you. Very common thing. For some reason they like to lie to their customers in cases like this rather than tell the truth, I don't know why.

Not sure who you work for - American, Delta, UAL, but you are dead wrong. I fly SWA 2-3 roundtrips a week and find they have more integrity than any other airline. I have been on MANY flights where mechanical, weather, missing crew (things that probably occur on your airline) where announced as the reason for the delay.

I fly SWA 2-3 roundtrips a week and find they have more integrity than any other airline.

Uh oh, that doesn't say much for those other airlines. :p And no, I don't work for an airline. FWIW, I was probably extreme when I said that it's common for SWA to lie to you. But there have been many times where they've lied to me (and the rest of the fliers) when there is a delay or something similar. I find that other airlines admit it and tell you what is going on and if they have to strand you they'll get you a hotel/meal voucher. Whereas I find that SWA will lie to you that your flight is not delayed and make everybody wait there (even worse the A's are standing in line this whole time ;) ). Then if the flight gets stranded they'll kick everybody out to the curb to fend for themselves.......although I admit that last part rarely happens on SWA. In general I think SWA has the best customer service (for general members, obviously not for elite members). Their only problem is their willingness to not tell the truth such as in the other instances mentioned in this thread.

Not sure who you work for - American, Delta, UAL, but you are dead wrong. I fly SWA 2-3 roundtrips a week and find they have more integrity than any other airline. I have been on MANY flights where mechanical, weather, missing crew (things that probably occur on your airline) where announced as the reason for the delay.

Geez, I doubt that Gregorygrady works for any other airline...I don't either. I fly 50,000+ miles on UA each year and I have flown enough on WN to get one or two RR tickets most years. And I havea good number of miles on US, AW, DL, AA also. I've never experienced the lies from gate gents from any of those airlines like I've seen with Southwest. As I mentioned before, the real topper is the gate agent claiming we're leaving on time when it's 5 minutes till departure and no aircraft yet at the gate..That would have been a good segemt for Airline; with a shot of the podium, a shot of the jetway with no aircraft yet, zoom in to the departure screen with "on-time" departure listed and the voiceover of "it's 5 minutes till departure, still no aircraft at the gate, and agent Bob still has "on-time" departure on the board; can they offload a full flightand reload it in 5 minutes..."

Southwest will only combine or cancel flights if they are short an aircraft. Probably it's the same for other airlines.



nsx:

Are you saying that "probably" no airline has ever in the history of commercial aviation "combined" two flights on the same route into one just to save money by not running the second flight? Or found a creative way to cancel one that was going out with 8% of the seats occupied?

I am certain you are, uh, a bit credulous. Anybody else agree with nsx on this one?

Of course, every plane, just like every automobile and every house, has SOMETHING wrong with it. I'm not talking about some minuscule imperfection that somebody could call a "mechanical" ("Oh, yes, the screw on the lav door hinge was loose, so we had to cancel the flight"). I mean a "real mechanical."

I strongly suggest you re-read what nsx posted. Your reading comprehension is suffering what I would call a "real mechanical."

Are you saying that "probably" no airline has ever in the history of commercial aviation "combined" two flights on the same route into one just to save money by not running the second flight?

When you cancel a flight, that airplane will not be where it needs to be for another flight. In Southwest's case, airplanes play hopscotch all around the country rather than flying back and forth. Same with crews. It's more efficient this way. The operations people at one airport cannot make the call to cause all that havoc unless it's absolutely necessary or unless someone at HQ has figured out how to deal with the downstream effects.

Legacy airlines often bounce one aircraft and crew back and forth between A and B. In those cases you can cancel a pair of flights at once without other consequences. In those cases I can see the possibility of cancellation for purely financial reasons. In other cases I can't: something else has to prompt the decision.

Legacy airlines often bounce one aircraft and crew back and forth between A and B. In those cases you can cancel a pair of flights at once without other consequences. In those cases I can see the possibility of cancellation for purely financial reasons. In other cases I can't: something else has to prompt the decision.

There are some SWA flights (not only legacy) that also go from A to B and back to A. I have been on some. In this day and age, the cancellation of a light load to "double up" on the next flight is rare, maybe because most flights are now over 50% full (usually much more) -- so their is not sufficient capacity to take the paxs from the first flight -- and their are few flights that are unprofitable.

I strongly suggest you re-read what nsx posted. Your reading comprehension is suffering what I would call a "real mechanical."


??????????

I don't think I should address the specific situation, that is what Customer Relations is for. (I do not represent WN in any capacity on this board.) Just to clear the air, they do not have a hangar in LAS. On a rare day, there might be an extra aircraft...on a RARE day.

I will be the first to admit that there is room for improvement on the communication of delays. What many don't know is that in the background there are a team of people who are working on minimizing delays for the least amount of people. This often results in question's going unanswered, or incorrectly.

I will say that it is normal for a delayed departure time to be conservative from the actual departure time. It is far too frequent that an a/c makes up time, the plane is ready to go, but 2 people are missing since a later time was posted. Once posted, they have to live by it.

Could it be improved? YES! Does this happen in every mode of transportation? YES! I understand where you all are coming from.

I will be the first to admit that there is room for improvement on the communication of delays. What many don't know is that in the background there are a team of people who are working on minimizing delays for the least amount of people. This often results in question's going unanswered, or incorrectly

At every airline there is a team of people working on delayed/cancelled flights. At AA, it's called the SOC and is staffed 24 hours per day. That being said, AA generally does a MUCH better job than WN at communicating delays.

Since I have experience with airline operations, it takes a lot to make me mad when I'm traveling but WN does it almost every time that there is a delay. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to estimate when a flight is going to arrive and then add 25 minutes to that time. That would be the "new" departure time. What WN seems to do is estimate the new arrival time and add 5 minutes to it to get the new departure time.

My conclusion is that WN doesn't really care about the passengers in delay situations. They just do whatever is most convenient for the airline and don't bother to explain it to the passengers.

I will be the first to admit that there is room for improvement on the communication of delays. What many don't know is that in the background there are a team of people who are working on minimizing delays for the least amount of people. This often results in question's going unanswered, or incorrectly.

Thanks for the response. I definitely understand where you are coming from. And I certainly don't have a problem with SWA trying to minimize delays for the least amount of people. I have more of a problem with the truthfulness of the SWA employees when they relay info back to us customers. To have 4 different people tell me that my scheduled plane had a mechanical failure when it was in fact a completely different plane just bothered me a bit. I would have rather they just been truthful and said my plane had the lightest load and/or my plane was going from A to B and back to A and would cause the least system disruption than being lied to. And as others say, it also bothers us when a flight is listed on the monitors as leaving on time when we can very easily track back and see the flight arriving at our gate is scheduled to arrive later than our flight is scheduled to depart. :confused:

And as others say, it also bothers us when a flight is listed on the monitors as leaving on time when we can very easily track back and see the flight arriving at our gate is scheduled to arrive later than our flight is scheduled to depart.

Unless an aircraft swap is planned, that is. But in that case, the gate would change for either the inbound or outbound flight.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to estimate when a flight is going to arrive and then add 25 minutes to that time. That would be the "new" departure time. What WN seems to do is estimate the new arrival time and add 5 minutes to it to get the new departure time.

Yes yes yes yes yes.

If anyone douts formeraa, all you need to do is visit the flight arrivals/departure website of any major WN airport (flyoakland.com, san.org, etc.) when there are delays and match up the arrival/departure gate and you will see what we're talking about here. It has happened to me so many times in person that it's not even funny. Deaparture times 5 or 10 or even 0 or negative minutes after the inbound arrival!

As I've mentioned before, it's also very suspicious that WN is the only major airline that erases the departure time from the flight status info on their web site once the flight has departed.

Having been a Plat AAdvantage member, I can agree that AA does communicate their delays effectively. They implement an across the board delay program that effects every flight, including ontime flights. That used to frustrate the heck out of me!

I think the culture of WN trains the Employee to turn the a/c as quick as possible, something not found at most airlines. As a result, they are overly cautious about posting a later departure time rather than an earlier one, to keep everyone at the gate for boarding.

I'm not saying the system is perfect, it's not! Just offering a different thought process. Perhaps HDQ will read the board and consider a new approach.

Having been a Plat AAdvantage member......snip

:confused: You, an AA Plat??? BLASPHEMY!!!!! ;)

As a result, they are overly cautious about posting a later departure time rather than an earlier one, to keep everyone at the gate for boarding.




I think we just want the truth - or best knowledge possible. If the inbound is to arrive 30 min late at 2:00pm, then announce it and say the departure will not likley be before 2:20pm. ( Once plane is on the way, the arrival time is usually fairly accurate and I have rarely seen a turnaround less than 20 min. - especially with 90% full flights) But stay in gate area and check often.

Then update passengers if and when things change.

Instead, by saying nothing -- those in line wait, and wait, and wait. Not very considerate to the customers.

If people wander off and return at 2:22pm (above example) and plane is closed up - just put them on next available.

I agree SAPMAN. There is room for improvement.

Gregory, "been" being past tense ;) I no longer fly them due to poor Customer Service and operational experiences. I fly about 80,000 revenue miles a year!

Off thread here. Seeing 'Wn Luvs You' post, reminded me that I hadn't seen 'High on Luv' in a long time. Did a search. There actually had been 2 posts in the last 2 months that I had missed because the threads did not interest me. However, even given those 2 posts, I think that we have been left as unimportant by WN. There have been a number of threads that could have used official WN imput to everyones benefit that have had no reply from officialdom.

Anybody who flies frequently knows that all airlines lie about delays. It is just SOP because they cannot provide the full truth or they would have to start buying flak jackets for the gate agents.

My biggest gripe is the failure to provide prompt information. As noted above, there are many instances when a flight still shows on time but everyone knows it is delayed (i.e. 5 minutes to departure, and there is still no plane at the gate). Also I think there are occasions when weather delays are obvious, i.e. gate hold in DEN due to blizzard, yet the airlines delay notifying passengers or updating schedules. Better to tell the truth so the affected passengers can make contingency plans.

In some ways the effect of delays is worse at WN due to the change fees. If you are flying UA, you can immediately standby on earlier/later flights for free, regardless of the announced length of the delay (if any). Not sure if this would be permitted on WN if you are flying discounted.

Although many of you have asked via PM, I am not "High on LUV" LOL.

Boraxo, if your original flight is delayed, they often will allow standby at no charge on the earlier flight. This does not mean if you are scheduled at 10p.m. and want to go at 1p.m. they'll do it! The delay normally had to be greater than 20 minutes for them to consider it.

Hey WN Luvs U -

I have checked online to see flight status and saw it was delayed and then arrived at the airport where it shows on time (and actually was delayed to the online time). Is online mostly correct?

I've had cellphone text message alerts (signed up for Flight Status on southwest.com) that reported delays that were not showing on the airport departure boards.

Online is exactly what the gate Agent sees. They probably swapped aircrafts to get it back ontime.

Yes yes yes yes yes.

If anyone douts formeraa, all you need to do is visit the flight arrivals/departure website of any major WN airport (flyoakland.com, san.org, etc.) when there are delays and match up the arrival/departure gate and you will see what we're talking about here. It has happened to me so many times in person that it's not even funny. Deaparture times 5 or 10 or even 0 or negative minutes after the inbound arrival!

As I've mentioned before, it's also very suspicious that WN is the only major airline that erases the departure time from the flight status info on their web site once the flight has departed.

Thanks, justageek! Sometimes I believe that I'm a bit hypersensitive since I know a bit more than the average traveler. I always match up my departure times with the inbound flight arrival time on the airport monitor. No airline is perfect in delay situations. However, my frustration is simply that WN is at best "overly optimistic" and at worst simply not telling the truth during delay situations.