Originally Posted by GeorgeJ
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.
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.
Note to SWA: Just telling the truth would be so much more customer friendly!!