Southwest cancellations...

[KKB]

17 hours ago, jsglow said:

That's really hard to say other than to know that you're more likely to get a snow situation in Denver rather than somewhere else. 

 

Here's the reality. I think it's fairly safe to assume SWA will be running 'fine'.  This was a cascading event with Denver, holiday travel, the big multi city storm, and their inadequate crew matching software all causing the 'meltdown'. IF Denver has a specific problem that day, Customer Service will simply reroute you. Planes simply aren't at 105% the third week of January.

Case in point. DS had a 5AM flight home from Phoenix today. Cancelled yesterday...but there were MANY other options to get him home the rest of the day. He actually got a better flight.

16 hours ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

If you can change flights without paying more (which should be the case because the Nashville one-stops are both the cheapest flights at $109), I'd pick Nashville (BNA) over all the other choices for connecting cities (MDW, STL, DEN, and BWI) based on the likelihood of winter weather.

SWA is pretty much allowing ANY change for FREE right now...I've changed our Saturday flight 2x in the last week, tweaking it for our needs.

[jsglow]

On 1/1/2023 at 10:43 AM, DallasGuy75219 said:

They are back to a small number cancellations, less than 1% of daily flights.  

 

Of course there's always the risk of weather issues in Detroit or Denver in January on any airline.  But after this event you can bet Southwest is going to do everything they can to prevent this from happening again, even if that means cancelling flights right before a storm so they can get crews in position to restart operations immediately after the storm.

I think we have confirmation. Denver had 500ft ceilings, quarter mile visibility and freezing fog today.  It's a mess.

 

SWA  effectively said NFW and cancelled the majority of their flights to/from.  Total, they have 130 cancellations today (a very modest and workable 3%) and it's nearly all DEN. They are simply not going to overextend and get their crews and aircraft out of position again erring on the side of caution.

[jsglow]

6 minutes ago, KKB said:

Case in point. DS had a 5AM flight home from Phoenix today. Cancelled yesterday...but there were MANY other options to get him home the rest of the day. He actually got a better flight.

SWA is pretty much allowing ANY change for FREE right now...I've changed our Saturday flight 2x in the last week, tweaking it for our needs.

So I think I read elsewhere that you're heading on your first Whale Tail.  I hope you enjoy.  Ask away; we've done about 20.

[DallasGuy75219]

7 minutes ago, KKB said:

SWA is pretty much allowing ANY change for FREE right now...I've changed our Saturday flight 2x in the last week, tweaking it for our needs.

Not as far out as 1/20 though.  I was able to change my 1/6 STL-BNA-FLL to a nonstop for free but couldn't change my 1/17 FLL-DCA-STL.

[KKB]

3 minutes ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

Not as far out as 1/20 though.  I was able to change my 1/6 STL-BNA-FLL to a nonstop for free but couldn't change my 1/17 FLL-DCA-STL.

Interesting...curious to know how far out they are allowing changes.

[RCmommy]

16 hours ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

If you can change flights without paying more (which should be the case because the Nashville one-stops are both the cheapest flights at $109), I'd pick Nashville (BNA) over all the other choices for connecting cities (MDW, STL, DEN, and BWI) based on the likelihood of winter weather.

I went ahead and switched us back to the Nashville layover. If the opportunity is there to better our odds, why not take it?  We even got $28 back in credit.

[RCmommy]

5 minutes ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

Not as far out as 1/20 though.  I was able to change my 1/6 STL-BNA-FLL to a nonstop for free but couldn't change my 1/17 FLL-DCA-STL.

I just changed my flight for January 20th no problem.

[jsglow]

4 minutes ago, KKB said:

Interesting...curious to know how far out they are allowing changes.

We're flying the 13th and no free switch.

[jsglow]

2 minutes ago, RCmommy said:

I just changed my flight for January 20th no problem.

Interesting.  Now we did make a change where the price was exactly the same but it wasn't 'pick any flight you want'.

[DallasGuy75219]

2 minutes ago, RCmommy said:

I just changed my flight for January 20th no problem.

You can always change your flight on Southwest and pay the difference (if more expensive) or get the difference back in cash or flight credits (if less expensive), which is what you did.

 

@KKB and I were referring to the waiver resulting from the meltdown, which allows you to change your flight date/time at no cost. It's just not clear when that waiver ends, but it's between 1/6 and 1/16 based on my data points.

[RCmommy]

12 minutes ago, jsglow said:

We're flying the 13th and no free switch.

So when I changed our outbound flight, I only checked those options.  I didn't check our return.  After reading your comment I decided to go back in and check our return flight from HOU to DTW on January 28th.  I had no intention to change as there are only two flights would could reasonably make.  Our original flight was there but cheaper and I was able to "change" and get an additional $69 back in credit.  All the flights were there when I originally booked and all were less money except three which would have cost the difference to switch to.

[RCmommy]

6 minutes ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

You can always change your flight on Southwest and pay the difference (if more expensive) or get the difference back in cash or flight credits (if less expensive), which is what you did.

 

@KKB and I were referring to the waiver resulting from the meltdown, which allows you to change your flight date/time at no cost. It's just not clear when that waiver ends, but it's between 1/6 and 1/16 based on my data points.

ahh.  Got it!

[RCmommy]

Because of this thread I scored nearly $100 back in credits so I am happy!  😁

[jsglow]

1 hour ago, RCmommy said:

Because of this thread I scored nearly $100 back in credits so I am happy!  😁

Beer us RC! 🍺

[RCmommy]

5 hours ago, jsglow said:

Beer us RC! 🍺

Absolutely!