dcstudent

I'm getting really tired of WN schedule changes here in ATL. I'm starting to think they've given up on business travelers. I've had to cancel (and rebook on Delta) multiple round trips lately because I can no longer do same day turns, or the early/late flights were cancelled on certain routes. For example, in June I had to cancel a LGA trip after they cancelled the late evening LGA-ATL and my only option was a 4pm. Just now, I had to cancel a trip to DCA for next month because, like LGA, they cancelled the late DCA-ATL. I've also had to cancel a CLE trip. It's gotten so bad, I've just given up on booking WN unless it's purely for personal travel and I don't care if flights get screwed up.

At the moment it looks like I'm going to end up 6 flights short of A-List and if I don't make it, that's the end of WN for me as work won't pay for Early Bird or Business Select and I'm not playing check-in roulette at 24hrs.

Anyone else in the same boat?

NoStressHere

Interesting situation. When I first read the title I was thinking about a late Dec flight getting bumped in January.

But - you do bring up a good point.

I would think the ONLY chance getting a waiver might be if you showed you had booked enough flights but WN did not fly a few of them which not only resulted in less segments, but also left you stranded.

Good luck

nsx

I'm still hoping for some sort of new status extension or additional requalification break before year end.

smmrfld

If intra-CA schedules are any indication, WN is indeed giving up on biz pax. Very frustrating.

olouie

So much this. I’ve dropped my WN business 70-80% because of their bad schedules and constant changes.

catlike

Agreed with the above posters, WN appears to be focused on leisure travel. IMO I can see why it may make sense for them.

I have stopped considering booking WN after schedule changes and cancellations this year, just too unreliable for me and I would prefer to be on a big 3 airline for anything other than a non-stop on WN. It’s a shame because WN does/did have some non-stops that were very convenient for me, but if I can’t trust the schedule it’s not worth the $ savings.

bgasser

With leisure travel back to pre-covid levels and business travel still down over 50% (according to DL), you can understand that WN re-balances its schedule when business demand is returning at a slower pace than predicted. Destinations out of LGA tend to be business focused as you found out. I can't imagine WN schedulers being able to predict events like the NY auto show being canceled when they released their schedule. It is annoying, but airlines need to have flights they can make money on.

jjbiv

How far in advance are you booking business trips which are affected by schedule changes? Maybe it's just me but I have a hard time confirming trips more than a few weeks in advance and the schedule is usually firm at that point (operational issues are a different story). Once business travel demand comes back in full force, WN will adjust their schedules to provide the options business travelers demand.

Hot Pocket

For critical segments I have been retaining both a WN and AA seat. Sucks for everyone, but both airlines are so unreliable this summer that I feel painted into a corner.

nsx

WN has correctly concluded "If we build it, they won't come". When business travelers are ready to fly, Southwest will add the necessary flights. Until then, the few business travelers will see few and inconvenient flight options.

Air Houston

On my most frequent route Southwest usually has one non-stop per day. It used to operate at noon westbound, which worked well for me. Then they changed some days to 8 am, which would require me to leave home at 5:00 am. I am not a morning person and don’t enjoy getting up at 4 am. So I am not doing that. And the days aren’t even consistent from week to week. So it’s nearly impossible to plan. They put me on two-stop itineraries with 8 hours travel time vs 3 hours for the non-stop on some of the Re-bookings. Hard pass on that. The eastbound moves between 2:30 and 4:30 pm, which I can live with. But if I am driving to IAH to fly UA or DL outbound I won’t be returning to HOU no matter what time the Southwest flight operates.

kennycrudup

Same. I've made CP via BIS since 2018 (even last year, thanks to "CP Lite") - but between moving to SNA (so no need to fly into SNA/SAN), the frustrating lack of N/S out of SNA (I've been cheating and taking AS sometimes thanks to the status match to MVPG75) and spending weeks at a time in FLL, hopefully I can manage to still squeak by into A+ before 1/1.

bgasser

WN schedule is fixed to the end of October. I would not trust any scheduled flights beyond Halloween.

PHXflier

You can add a lack of on-time performance toward the end of the day, which can lead to having to overnight somewhere. The frequent meltdowns earlier in the summer also were totally incompatible with business travel. How do I explain to customers that I come at 1 pm when I had scheduled to be there first thing in the morning? I find WN acceptable for personal travel when the price is right, but for business travel I have stuck with Delta.

xliioper

It looks to be largely set through November 6th. There's a number of frequency bump ups and some schedule returns starting on November 7th. As far as DL vs. WN at ATL, most of DL's schedule reductions have focused on other hubs and ATL has been less impacted during Covid. Plus DL is so huge at ATL that they can cut a frequency or two on a route and you'd hardly notice it. By comparison, WN is much smaller at ATL and any changes will tend to be more impactful.