Southwest Airlines cancels 1,000 more flights as disruptions mount

Ouch! Hopefully no VMBers get caught up in this

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/10/southwest-airlines-cancels-1000-more-flights-as-disruptions-mount.html

Side note.. Spirit airlines was trashed on this board for something similar!

 

Interesting comments by their pilot's association.

“Our Pilots will continue to overcome SWA management’s poor planning, as well as any external operational challenges, and remain the most productive Pilots in the world,” it said.

 

Well, the Spirit issues went on for numerous consecutive days. If the cancellations on SWA continue through Monday, then they deserve all the bad mouthing they will surely receive. Let's just hope it gets straightened out

 

What bothers me is that they try to blame it on external factors like weather and ATC, when plenty of other airlines operate in the area and weren't hit as hard. At least Spirit doesn't pretend to anything other than a flying version of New Jersey Transit.

 

Sure hope they get their personnel (weather issues) settled soon.

 

Yea... another bad day or days for SWA.

We fly them almost exclusively... but starting to question my loyalty. (still planning to get another companion pass by January - LOL)

 

Yeah, "weather"...what a crock to avoid paying hotels, compensation etc. Huge joke.

 

I think SWA was one of the main airlines people trashing Spirit say they prefer to take because things like this don't happen. Things like this happen on every airline, regardless of the price you paid for that seat.

Hopefully they straighten it out and people aren't stranded.

 

We've had four flight cancellation issues with Southwest in the past. Only once did they step up and acknowledge responsibility. That was because our plane had taken off and wouldn't pressurize properly, so they had to return to the airport. Couldn't blame that on "weather" like they did the other times. The other times they couldn't explain how the weather was to blame, but that was their story and they were sticking to it. When they screw up you learn that the "luv" airline isn't so loveable.

 

I have a spirit flight booked next Sunday and booked a SWA backup. So maybe I should get a backup to my backup?

 

Weather delays elsewhere can effect your flight; not just your weather. 1000 flights with only 130 people on each one is a lot of people to get where they thought they would be.
Somebody f*’d up You have to have a resume that included a stint at Boyd to think people wouldn’t check their weather app or other airline schedules.
But sometimes one person’s decision embarrasses other employees. They go soft. If they can. I’d contact someone if I were inconvenienced. It can’t hurt.
I wrote a letter once when they lost my bag and the inconvenience of it arriving 24 hours later on a non-stop flight. Couldn’t figure how they did that but they at least gave me 100$ voucher for future flights. Of course 100$ meant something back then…..

 

I may be jinxing us but so far our flight out of MKE in the morning is still on. We fly out at 8:55am and land at 10:50am. Vegas is supposed to be under a high wind warning starting at 11am. Fingers crossed!

 

Even before the current mess, my last SWA flight was delayed 6 hours. They have been a hot mess ever since the 737 Max issues.

Back in June, as I was boarding my on time Spirit flight, a whole bunch of SWA passengers were stuck waiting overnight at LAS after their flight to San Diego was cancelled.

Obviously, a lot of things lately have been out of their control, but labor-management issues need to be dealt with, and they should be honest with their customers.

 

CNN - Southwest Airlines cancels more than 1,000 flights Sunday

"the weekend delays may have been caused by a pilot walk-out."

(Emphasis added by moderator.)

 

My last swa flight from vegas was in mid sept to MDW, an hour out of landing got diverted to Indianapolis due to “weather” spent the night in the terminal and got $200 voucher for my pain and suffering.

I was also in the las vegas terminal when SWA had problems with getting the weather info packets to their pilots

 

We had significant weather issues in South Florida yesterday that canceled many flights

 

This isn't the first time 'weather issues' have been the cause for delays and cancellations this year but 27% of their flights seems excessive. Scheduling is not just about one flight but if a crew is delayed getting it out of a place like LA, then they run in to issues with how long they can work. Flight crews are VERY restricted on how many hours in a row they can work and SWA has sort of made it a point to try and organize their flights to get crews home, or close to it, as often as they can. So, when you try to take all those things in to account - actual weather delays, crew hours, final destinations - it is not hard to see how delays and cancellations happen. If a flight is delayed at one spot, the cascading effects can disrupt more than just that one flight for the crew, just like it would for the customers.

With that said, again, 27% of flights in a day, a week after SWA implemented a vaxx requirement for everyone, seems like more than a coincidence. Will this continue on or will SWA make the adjustments and start cancelling flights more frequently over the next month in advance or will they do what they did this weekend and just do it at the last minute? I wasn't worried about my trip in November but starting to get there now.

 

Over the summer, there were a lot of flights cancelled because it was too hot in the Southwest US for them to take off or land. This is probably not something that is going to go away either.

 

https://www.swapa.org/news/2021/press-release/

 

This changes nothing for me. Southwest is still my airline of choice. They will survive this.