rsteinmetz70112

I wonder if the previous waiver will be discontinued as Southwest not has the challenge of re-booking all of the people booked on those grounded planes.

illinidad

Yeah. It seems like the deadline has bounced around a bit. There was an earlier report about a May 27 (which was an obvious typo) later changed to Mar 27. Whatever. The website is now letting me change the outbound, but not the return. At least not yet, as you say

rsteinmetz70112

I have to wonder whether this will continue. Southwest now has to rebook all of the passengers on the grounded planes and since not more MAX 8s are flying there is no reason to allow this to continue, except to somehow help manage the reduced capacity, but I don't see how it can.

s0ssos

Is southwest booking anybody on other airlines, given all the cancellations?

ninerzfan8

Those with scheduled max flights, are you re-booking to a non-max flight or just playing luck of the draw hoping they switch your plane?

I have 4 people booked from SMF to PHX next Saturday first flight in the AM. It appears this first Saturday flight is the only SMF to PHX on the max as the rest of the day are all 737-700 or 800s.I could move back 2 hours but would prefer not to if theres a good chance they'll just give us another plane. Really wouldn't want to move back and end up in some kind of cancel spiral if they decide to take one of the other flights planes as the day goes on. Flight is marked as sold out so I'd assume they would try to run it but who knows. Also don't want to get to the airport in the morning and have everyone else already have changed and be stuck with no flights.

nsx

Other than to save customers from 3 hour hold times on the phone? That would be an own goal against customer service.

rsteinmetz70112

I'd bet a huge majority of customers don't know what plane they were scheduled on nor to change their flight on the website.
Why would they?

MacStainless

ftnoob

Welcome to FlyerTalk, AustinJoey!

ftnoob

Not a stupid question at all. I wondered the same thing and was surprised to find no discussion of that on this thread so far. I'm guessing that because there has been no report of an official announcement, the only way to answer the question is through trial and error. Given the 24-hour refund policy, it's a no-risk experiment. Who wants to give it a go?

Yellowjj

Does the 24hr policy still apply for a ticket bought for tomorrow though, which is half of MacStainless question?

I also wonder whether new tickets will be given the same leeway as pre-existing reservations, but I doubt you'd be able to refund for a ticket the next day.

ursine1

From the looks of the complaints on social media it would appear that the MAX waiver is backfiring on them. People are checking in for their flights as usual, seeing the message and thinking their flight is cancelled, and flooding the phone lines trying to figure out what's going on. Hold times are now approaching 3 hours, and the website and app are having issues (shocking). People with legitimately canceled flights are getting error messages trying to rebook online.


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Jerseyguy

Having worked in retail, I can tell you alot of people are A. too distracted B. Panic when they don't understand.

This should be very easy. Read the notice. Think oh no my flights been cancelled? Ok, check flight status. Great flight not canceled.. continue with life

nsx

Yes you can refund that. Be nice and do it immediately after booking. Southwest's policy is more generous that the law requires in this respect.

Often1

You have identified the bottom line problem. No way to tell at this point whether your MAX aircraft will be replaced (and then how many will need to be bumped) or whether, if you change to another flight which is not currently a MAX, that flight will be cancelled and the aircraft assigned to perform another flight.

You could just wait for things to settle down, but then you risk not finding space on other WN flights or even being able to buy tickets on AA (WN does not have interline agreements).