Still More Southwest Cancellations

In the midst of media reports that Southwest is "back to normal", via Reddit, I learn:

Welp! @SouthwestAir’s entire system for obtaining weather report packets is down — so the whole airline is barred from taking off, per FAA regulations. 🫠

It was only 4 days ago, that Southwest restored normal operations…

— Ian Saint (@iansaint_) January 4, 2023

This was updated several hours later to indicate the system had been restored, but nobody was clear on how cancellations would affect downstream operations. A Reddit user reported,

Left Little Rock on time, just landed in Dallas. I was just sure that Southwest wouldn’t [bleep] with me and my 3 girls anymore than they already have (cancelled flight on Christmas Eve, no rebooking til after the 30th, spent thousands for other flights, no luggage our ENTIRE TRIP, etc.)

Pilot came on just after wheels touched down, and said he’s been working with SWA for 37 years and has never seen this level of incompetence. . . and he’s not sure how to tell us this. . . but we can’t get to our gate because someone somewhere in Southwest corporate has decided that planes can’t leave unless they have a PRINTED paper copy of the weather packet (whatever that is) even though the pilots’ electronic devices that they carry at all times have the exact documents in digital form. And for some reason they can’t print anything right now. So we are sitting on the tarmac waiting for a piece of paper to print that is unnecessary and stupid. Yay Southwest.

Interestingly, while I recognize that the pilot's remarks over the PA could subject him to corporate repercussions, I'm also sure that after 37 years, he was fully aware of this, but his level of frustration over a two-week period had probably pushed him to the don't-care point. No doubt he'd be happy to retire, and if pushed, I'm sure he will. But the replies from the Southwest groupies -- or maybe tankies -- were remarkable for their vitriol:

The captain needs to retire. Getting a printed weather packet is nothing new. It is part of the process. If he is that unhappy he should move on.

Or:

The seemingly redundant protocols are why it is so safe to fly. I don't need a bunch of armchair pilots throwing out these safeguards. If everyone knew so much, we wouldn't have these situations.

I outgrew Southwest loyalism in the 1990s. As a regular flier at the time, I saw too many cases where they canceled flights due to low ridership but blamed hardware issues. Since my tickets were paid by my employer, I coudn't really complain, but my view was that Southwest was a part of life, just like the need to buy a new dishwasher or pay credit card fees. Not everyone feels this way, but I think Southwest is getting exactly what it deserves.

It's clear from Reddit that Southwest's policies on refunding flights and expenses are completely opaque. For instance,

Contacted by phone several times told to submit tickets for the “crisis teams” to handle the issue. Haven’t been able to get a hold of anyone today or yesterday, started opening up DoT complaints related to the refund and reimbursement to get more attention. Anyone getting any solid communication from SWA?

Another case,

Reminder to call (888) 202-1024 if (800) 435-9792 is giving you long wait times. When asked if you have a claim number, just say yes. Was IMMEDIATELY transferred to an agent. Someone posted this number on here a few days ago, and I called it today. Even if you don't have a claim number, just say "Yes" when asked. I was able to talk to someone immediately.

The poster explained in the commnents,

Whole call took about 50 minutes, she was apologetic and efficient. I just had to give her all of the confirmation numbers of the canceled flights and she refunded each one, one-by-one. I was also promised a $250 voucher that expires in a year. I haven't received the voucher via email yet, she said it could take up to a month to receive it just because of the overwhelming requests... so who knows when I'll actually get that, if I get it.

When I asked about reimbursements for Lyfts, meals, etc. she just told me to do it through the website, they seem to have no information on how long that can take and can't do anything about it themselves.

I'm still $350 out for the flight I took on 12/26 (what I paid for it), and she said she couldn't refund me because I actually went on it? Of course, this should just be seen as a "rebooking" that I did myself, and she understood that, but she just redirected me to the website to get this sorted out, because she couldn't do anything on her end.

So if you use workarounds to get past the obstacles, they'll help you out with some of the issues, but not all of them, and you're still in limbo over potentially thousands in hotel, meal, and rental expenses. Another user reported success with a similar bypass-workaround strategy:

I did the email thing and got no response and saw that if you @ them on Twitter and then DM your information they may get to you quicker so I did that and DM’d them all of my information and receipts including my situation, confirmation number, flight numbers, DOB, etc. and they processed everything and told me the amount of he check they were going to send me within 3 or 4 hours. They also figured out that I had emailed them as well and linked the cases

Again, going through their published procedures probably doesn't work, but if you try hard enough to bypass them, you may actually find a helpful individual employee who can resolve some or all of your issues. The best that can be said is this doesn't follow the model of transparent response to corporate crises. On the other hand, if you're a Southwest loyalist, they'll hand you bundles and bundles of rewards points for future flights, and you can abuse the still-unhappy customers on forums to your heart's content.

I do wonder how many of the abusive types are bots.