seat38a

Reading through all of the horror stories at Southwest, I was reminded of the 2 times where United booked me on American and also proactively booked me on Air Canada just in case my flight was late. Flew home ORD - LAX on American and didn't end up having to use the Air Canada reservation and just flew my originally booked ORD - YYZ flight.

Also saw an article on why Southwest is having a total meltdown vs the big 3 and the explanation was that the big 3 use a hub and spoke model which vs Southwest's point to point which spreads the flight crews all over the place. Sure First Class food sucks on United and Polaris isn't where it used to be but I think I'll stick to United and Star Alliance.

No amount of free checked bags and folksy, funny etc. FA's can make up for the operation mess that seems to plauge Southwest when the weather goes bad.

zeus2120

Total meltdown indeed. I am a big Southwest fan and hope this wakes them up to modernizing their backend IT infrastructure. Imagine if United could just improve their ground and inflight customer service to Southwest levels. United would be firmly rooted as the number 1 option. I think it's getting better as more of the older employees retire and are replaced by youth -- but I'm based in CLE and all I get are the very rude dinosaurs. I flew Jet Blue for the first time a bit ago and it made me appreciate how good United actually is.

gold23

Interesting that you say Jet Blue. I find their on-board Y product so head and shoulders ahead of UA that I will choose them every time on competing routes. Yes, I'm much much better positioned flying UA in times if IRROPS, but the consistency of the on-board experience (for my purposes) blows UA away. Now, if I'm heading somewhere for a meeting, I'll trust UA. All depends on my travel purposes, but I don't think Jet Blue is in the same breath as SW. Southwest is for pricing and convenience, but hold your breath.

lincolnjkc

CLE is very senior (IIRC, it is the top line station for seniority with more than half having 30 or more years of service) but I can't say I know any rude dinosaurs (well...since the merger. There was one pmUA dude that I found to be so intolerable I just had the ticket refunded and went over to WN rather than dealing with his idiocy...but that was nearly 11 years ago at this point) -- some are overly blunt at times but the UA CLE crew has been the one thing that's kept me loyal to UA is the amount of "above and beyond" looking out they do for flyers -- some may never realize the magic that premium services agents and ops are working in the background... Inflight is much more of a mixed bag -- when its good its awesome and when it's anything else eh....

It does surprise me that WN seemed to be so technically unprepared (seems like a root issue may be saturating available bandwidth for their VOIP call paths based on reading between the lines) but every airline has had issues -- my perception is UA has generally been less scathed than others but UA/DL/AA are not perfect -- but at least they have broad interline agreements to aid recovery.

PsiFighter37

Seems like UA’s next set of ads targeting WN in the Denver market just wrote themselves.

Bear96

I keep hearing this in the media too and I am not sure I buy it. WN definitely has what are hubs by any reasonable definition (BWI, MDW, HOU, DAL, DEN, PHX, LAS). And other airlines that are traditionally considered to have a hub and spoke model have periodic meltdowns too. All airline crews and aircraft at UA, for example, don't spend all day doing ORD-STL-ORD-STL-ORD. Though there are some schedules like that, more typically they go all over the system.

JimInOhio

That was my reaction, too. I know a UA 737 crew can start from their base and travel to anywhere from Canada to Central America before returning home.

scubadu

I'm always thankful that I don't fly Southwest, doesn't take a storm for that...

Regards

halls120

Same here. Southwest's point to point system is what causes these meltdowns, and their refusal to interline passengers makes things worse.

zombietooth

I Quit flying them years ago when it became obvious that they are almost never cheaper than UA. For those who don't get free bags, they may be competitive. However, their seat comfort is not good and I only fly them when I have no other choice e.g. during IRROPS.
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To those affected by this meltdown; you have my sympathies.

emcampbe

Yup. Everything mentioned above, plus the fact that the supposed ‘low cost’ airline isn’t low cost for pax - maybe just for WN itself on the cost side.

I really tried to try WN back in the day, including when I was living in Chicago area for several years. But I never ever saw Southwest cheaper more than a handful of dollars, certainly not near the level where I would want to forgo the benefits of flying UA (as a low-level premier) or making the schlep to MDW (I was in near north suburbs, so even all else being equal, flying ORD was way easier than getting through city to MDW in the south).

I always thought the lack of seating assignments was annoying, for sure. But the non-interline thing really irks me too - get caught on the wrong day (like say, today) and there’s basically no chance for your trip to recover. Just imagine you made it to destination ok, but can’t get home without a new ticket. UA has interlined me or protected me multiple times over the years, so I know that helps in the right (well, wrong) situation.

As for JetBlue, we flew them once, and not very happy with their delay handling out of LGB (hub at the time still, and LGB was most convenient for that trip). Yeah, they may have the free wifi and snacks onboard, which yes, is nice, but when you’re stuck at LGB for hours with basically no support or updates from staff, not worth it.

jhayes_1780

Not to defend WN or bury anyone else... But it happen to all carriers.

But to directly answer the OP, I am thankful I CANT fly WN because the closest airport they serve near me is over 2 hrs away.

prestonh

when was the last time you had an autorebook on OAL by UAL during irrops?

aCavalierInCoach

At the end of the day, I think for most fliers schedule still rules. I'm a long-time GS and still use southwest. If I need to go from SF to Burbank for the day, United flies what a few Jungle and Poutine jets at times built for onward SFO connections, whereas Southwest probably has 25-30 flights per day combined out of OAK, SFO and SJC?

The meltdown is a mess -- a combination of eager expansion and crew scheduling resources that were stretched beyond their limits. Will it stop me from flying WN? I can look at what happened and say "hell yes" but when it comes to booking time, they've got the schedules many folks need and they'll still win.

halls120

a decade ago, at least. But the fact remains that when you have to cancel 66% of your flights for three days, and your competition cancellation rates are in the single digits, something is seriously broken.