Originally Posted by
airplanegod
No, you can't compare the United incident to this one. In this case, while everything was not perfect, Southwest got a replacement aircraft up to there as soon as they could, gave everyone hotel and food vouchers, and flew them from Dallas to Baltimore. In the United case, they were dumped at a military barrack (and fed thanks to the wonderful Canadians who were there), flown almost 24 hours later to Newark, and then finally on to London.
Try again. There was an emergency with the UA aircraft, which was about to cross the Atlantic, closest airport was in the middle of nowhere in NE Canada - no hotels, food in the area. If WN had interlining agreements - like ALL other major US carriers - they could have put at least some of the passengers on other flights (out of DFW) to reduce the inconvenience - no such option in the UA case.
The other complication for UA is that the ORD-LHR flight was on a 767, spares are not readily available. WN only flies 737, it is difficult to understand why it was not possible to send a relief aircraft and crew capable of flying to the destination.
Yet another example of how WN is run by a bunch of bean counters - focused only on 6% growth in 2015, minimum 15% quarterly profit, regardless of how it impacts customers.
Get ready for more such delays if there is not an agreement with the Pilot's union, they start working to the rules, taking aircraft out of service for what would otherwise be considered minor issues.