LegalTender

Could be right..

diver858

While the DOT may not impose civil or criminal penalties, they (and the FAA) have the ability to require something much worse: documentation. WN and LUV can be required to provide the government with reams of data and detailed reports, detailed explanations, requiring and army of staff and lawyers to spends thousands of hours at the company's expense. Any irregularities can then result in detailed corrective actions.

No different than making extra efforts to avoid IRS audits and lawsuits - even if you do everything right, the cost in time and $$ to defend yourself can be overwhelming.

dcstudent

I don't know how they'll clean this up without buying tickets on other carriers for displaced pax. 70% of schedule cancelled today, 60% tomorrow? No way you're going to make that up in a reasonable time frame with a couple seats here and there over the next week on WN's own metal.

Peter T.

Here's a free link (beyond WSJ's paywall) to today's WSJ's article on Southwest's meltdown:Southwest Airlines Cancels About Two-Thirds of Flights as Woes Spiral

dcstudent

In addition to the 60% of schedule already cancelled tomorrow they are up to 27% cancelled for Wednesday!

At some point it's really not weather anymore...and WN should be paying for hotels/meals for all these stranded pax.

krazykanuck

What a show today. I flew WN out of SRQ, rolling delays for seemingly most flights, others were just cancelled. A GA announced from the podium that their system was completely down. My flight finally got out 2+ hours late. Upon landing in HOU I was surprised how quiet the terminal was, but then I realized it was because so many flights were cancelled. The baggage claim was like a mosh pit. Untold numbers of canceled flights worth of pax were waiting for their bags to be offloaded and delivered back to them. The line for the WN baggage service office wound all the way back down the hallway towards the intl baggage claim area. Some pax were yelling that they had been waiting since noon for their bags (and this was at about 4:45 pm).

I mean this was the screen at baggage claim:

hhdl

WSJ just updated the above-linked article to report that WN plans to operate only slightly more than a third of the Tuesday or Wednesday schedule.

"Southwest plans to operate just over one third of its schedule over the coming days"

wrp96

Don’t know if this is true or photoshopped but a friend just sent me this

twitch76

WN canceled all remaining flights out of SAN today, at around 1pm.

It’s 70-77 and Sunny in San Diego today. Thousands of customers are not going to be happy if WN declares their cancellations to be a weather event.

At some point there will be a large enough outcry that WN’s operational strategy and flight route distribution will not be an acceptable explanation. While I understand why a weather event in Chicago can affect WN’s operations in SAN, that explanation doesn’t make much sense to the hordes of holiday travelers.

IF WN is to retain that strategy, they need to have wider operational margins.

FCfree

If a flight was booked on points but I paid $20 for Early Bird (each way), and the flight is cancelled, do they refund my $20 Early Bird Fee? I know they return my points and $5.60 TSA fee.

twitch76

I don’t know the policy, but they should. I wouldn’t spend any time on it right now… I’d wait until January 8th or so and call in around 6am and request the refund.

From transportation.gov:

kennycrudup

Looks to be the same out of SNA; I need to get to SMF tomorrow (well, sometime this week) and based on the conversations I've had with the crew on these flights, most of them stay within California, and SNA-SMF isn't even close to affected by weather; hell, I may even drive.

djp98374

um yes and no…..

Alaska can hit such numbers if Seattle is hit with a snow/ ice storm.
Jet Blue gets it in nor’easters

now United, American, and delta have many hubs. Pre consolidation when airlines had 1-2 hubs a bad weather e ent affecting one of those hubs caused chaos.

PV_Premier

very little got into/out of SMF today on WN. If you need to be up here on a schedule, be prepared to drive or grab a seat out of LAX on another airline (if you can find one)

coast starlight is another option but Amtrak doesn’t have a great on time record either

twitch76

I’d drive.