idayvuelta

I flew my brother to New York on Southwest. On Thursday I noticed New York was supposed to get hit with a big storm on Satuday, the day he was scheduled to leave. We called on Thursday and they said there wasn't anything they could do without charging a higher fare. I am very familiar with the rationale of Southwest's change policy, and I completely understand why they do not allow voluntary standby.

But in this case he was on the last connection out of Midway back home, and with a ~1:50 minute layover the risk of overnighting in Chicago was high.

We called again 3 separate times, including once this morning. In each instance they said it would be at the discretion of the airport and nothing could be done. Admittedly, I should stuck to my guns and just taken him to the airport early. But at that point the delays weren't that bad and I figured maybe the storm wasn't so bad.

At any rate by the time his flight posted as 3 hours delayed there were no other alternatives and he's overnighting in Chicago.

It's not the end of the world, and Southwest was generally very pleasant to work with. But they were pretty unwilling to confirm him on an earlier flight (that had availability) in the face of a really nasty storm. My only complaint is Southwest's phone agents should be empowered to be flexible with confirming people on an earlier flight or at least allowing standby when weather makes missing last connections likely.

formeraa

Honestly, I think you need to write a letter to WN about this situation.

idayvuelta

His flight and the one after just xled, meaning the forced overnight in Chicago isn't an option anymore. There's nothing available until Monday. He's taking a train to BWI that gets in late and a 7am flight back to home after getting basically no sleep. The weather in NYC was legitimately heinous, but this was such a predictable and avoidable situation.

buckeyefanflyer

I agree. Just to note Continental just added late today a weather advisory for the northeast that allows flexability in making changes without a fee. I am surprised they did not issue the advisory sooner as it;s a mess tonight, diversions and flight running as late as 6 hours.

idayvuelta

This poor kid. On an 11pm train to BWI. All northeast corridor trains canceled.

alggag

I'm a little surprised that they didn't declare a SODA on this system. Sounds like your brother would have had a MUCH easier day if he could've just scored an earlier flight.

I'm scheduled to fly into LGA on Monday afternoon. At the moment it looks like I'm going to miss the bulk of this mess by the slimmest of margins.

tusphotog

Has he tried ISP, PHL, BOS or BDL-MDW?

poiz01

SODA just went into effect for LGA and ISP. (1130a Eastern)

Allan38103

Southwest is usually pretty good about being flexible in cases of bad weather, but you have to talk to the right person. (One who has the authority to accomodate your request)

You are far more likely to get to the right person if you show up at the airport because there are more supervisors available.

idayvuelta

He'd never been to the City before, but he got a real NYC experience. After getting himself to Penn and having the train canceled, he had a homeless person threaten to beat him up, had to fight the hundreds of passengers trying to get a cab in the rain, and eventually negotiated with a gypsy cab to get him back to my place (who while driving got into a fight with another motorist and cut across 5 lanes to throw a cup of soda on the guy's windshield). +1 for authenticity.

We got him out this morning out of ISP - had to rent a car to get him there. Learning more about southwest's idiosyncrasies... There was a flight out of LGA, but the agent didn't think to hold the seat. So once she found it, she looked into the connection out of Chicago and released the seat. 90 seconds later when she went to book it the whole thing, the seat was gone and the flight sold out. While she felt bad, I was the one who had to rent a car and drive him to islip early this AM as a result.

Initially we'd been told the only option was Monday, which we booked. But looking online I saw other alternatives and realized the agents' reservation system is not particularly intelligent. When I called to get a better flight the agent simply typed ISP-YYY and said everything is sold out. Southwest.com similarly does not look for creative routing or even just a long layover. I patiently coached her to search ISP/LGA - BWI - MDW - XXX. Less than ideal but it got him home a day earlier. She was kind of surprised she was able to get a seat on each segment, but from that point it took an hour to get the tickets changed and required two separate itineraries be issued.

Serious ^^^^ for caring customer service, but so far WN's handling of of the Wx issues has been abysmal. When speaking with the agents, it kind of felt like this was the first service disruption they'd ever dealt with. That combined with the polite but firm refusal to get him out early in the face of a storm is kinda lame.


Oh, and P.S. Driving the rental home, I hit a pothole and blew a tire. I was stranded on the Grand Central Parkway for an hour, then towed to an off ramp, where I waited for another 4 hours. Just not our collective day!

SWABrian

I am so sorry for all the trials you and your brother have been through. Please PM the details of his travel (flights/dates/city pairs) plus his name, plus his e-mail and yours too. Let me see what I can do for both of you.
Brian

idayvuelta

Appreciate the attention and I will PM SWABrian that information. But just for the record given how bad the weather was, a ~$200 fare, and the fact that he was able to get home today, I really don't think it's fair to ask for compensation from WN.