Bear96

This is exactly my situation. WN is largest carrier out of my home airport, TPA, and the only one that goes nonstop to the places I need to for work. Two or three hours on one segment, never on an RJ, always one of the first on the plane so guaranteed an aisle seat towards the front and room for carry-ons vs. a half-day uncomfortable ordeal connecting through a mega-hub somewhere makes it a no-brainer for me.

AA/UA/DL etc. also all have periodic meltdowns. No way to avoid that once in a while no matter which airline you choose.

WannaTheater

Most the people vowing to never fly WN again are probably people that rarely fly in the first place. Having traveled extensively for work since 1996, one realizes that “things happen.” And if you are traveling during one of the busiest times of the year, and something DOES happen (uhhhhh WEATHER), it will take some time to rectify.

Personally, this does not impact my decision on future WN business… and I am currently stuck with a cancelled flight.

KDCAflyer

This. Part of my refusal to fly WN comes from their lack of interline agreements. And yes I know that everyone's flights are full right now, but at the very least there are usually enough open seats to take care of top-tier elites/their best customers, as well as disabled passengers/those with special needs. Interlining has saved me big time twice this year, and it's a must-have.

Requiring all US airlines to interline with each other would be a good move on DOT's part.

Bear96

No one probably has the big picture to fully answer that at this point, including WN. No doubt a bunch of factors came together at once. I am sure once they get through the immediate mess, WN will be taking a detailed look at what went wrong to learn from it. Whether they will make that public, who knows.

nineworldseries

I hope one thing infrequent fliers will take away from this meltdown is that if you can't afford a hotel room for a few nights at a moment's notice, you really cant afford to fly, especially on Southwest. Flying often costs a lot more than the base cost of the fare.

NoStressHere

Easy answers

#1 - one flight was cancelled,, but another flew, so they put the bags on that flight

#2 - Okay, maybe a guess... but the system was stressed when they had to cancel due to big storm last week. then it went over the edge and once that happened, it went belly up.

WannaTheater

Agreed, with a minor change… not “especially on Southwest.” Up until a few months ago, American Airlines was the villain, with massive flight cancellations, over months. (I had 3 trips in a row cancel my connection, requiring overnights CLT and MIA)

twitch76

In general, one of the things that Americans don't do well at is maintaining an real emergency fund.

As of early 2022, 56% of American's can't cover an unexpected $1,000 expense out of an emergency fund.
As recently as early December, 50% of Americans have less than $500 in an emergency fund.

There are lots of reasons for this -- and I suspect the sample space in this forum would break the curve. I don't wish to blame or shame any who don't have an emergency fund, because I don't know the economic issues that they are facing. But we live in an economic system that thrives on instant gratification, consumerism, and consumer debt, and so there is little motivation or incentive to support people in efforts to gain financial independence.

All of that to say -- a common rule of thumb is to have 3-months of expenses saved in an emergency fund. That seems absurdly insurmountable to so many people that I suspect many don't even consider whether or not they have the resources to create a Plan B if a travel plan goes sideways.

KDCAflyer

And now AA had the fewest problems this time. A lot of it seems cyclical/"the last meltdown was far enough in the past that we've gotten complacent again."

hotturnip

The lack of interline agreements is only part of it. Southwest has to re-think their basic logistics. There's no reason for one airline to be so much worse in weather events except for a system that just doesn't work.

The meltdowns on other airlines are often due to easily identifiable things such as tech problems, or a storm at a particular hub. This is a weather event that affects all airlines equally, yet WN is not up to the task.

twitch76

Yes. "especially on Southwest" has little to do with the need to have available resources to develop/deploy a Plan B while traveling. From a financial standpoint, if someone doesn't have at least $1,000 in an emergency fund, they shouldn't be flying. Even domestic travel insurance would be of little help in a meltdown like this. You simply need to be able to walk away from your current plan and develop a Plan B.

uastarflyer

it was never really weather. It’s their philosophy of doing the least amount possible. Any small glitch and they can’t handle it.

WannaTheater

So the weather didn't trigger this? I respectfully disagree.

dhuey

My situation: On 23 Dec, we flew from Oakland to Long Beach. Our flight was delayed for 2.5 hours as they searched for a replacement First Officer. No biggie — weather was causing problems all over the country.

But oh boy, what a mess for our return flight today, 27 Dec. I noticed on my own last night that our 2:20 pm flight had been canceled. We did not get any notification from Southwest, and we still haven’t.

I immediately went to Expert Flyer to see what our options were. That’s when I saw over 75% of Southwest flights cancelled. But…4 seats open on Spirit from Santa Ana to Oakland. Crazy expensive (almost $400 per, including checked bags), but I’m not in a good bargaining position. I grabbed the seats and hope Spirit will take us home tonight.

I plan on asking Southwest to cover the cost of the Spirit tickets, plus extra ground transportation from Long Beach to Santa Ana. We”ll see if they want to be stingy or be reasonable. They can’t pretend these are merely weather delays. Other airlines are mostly operating normally now.

uastarflyer

Weather exposed WN for what it is. Canceling 70% of flights 4 days in a row isn’t weather. It only snowed on WN planes? How much snow in PHX or SAN? It’s 70/sunny in Phoenix

They run a threadbare system with comic book level robustness. It didn’t take much to bring it to its knees.