Thousands of passengers were left stranded in the US when Southwest canceled thousands of flights

When the Southwest Airlines Goes Globally: Managing Flight Operations in a World Filled with Misconfigured Crews: a Case Study of Disruption

Southwest got smaller at the beginning of the Pandemic when travel fell off a cliff and they struggled as travel has rebounded. and they’re still not there,” Potter said.

Southwest’s CEO posted a video on his Facebook page and promised to get to the bottom of what had happened. Southwest expects to resume normal operations by Friday, and will be taking new bookings for the first time in days.

Ultimately, “the disruption primarily revealed a need to add functionality” to the to our Crew Scheduling software to solve for a large backlog of broken Crew pairings,” Watterson says in the prepared remarks.

Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, called it an incredibly complex task for an airline with a network as vast as Southwest’s to coordinate staffing and scheduling, particularly after weather delays.

Jeffrey Windau of Edward Jones said, “When they have a cancellation in one area it really ripples through because they don’t have their crews and their pilots in the right positions.” It’s difficult to get the operations flowing smoothly again when it gets disrupted, because they build on from city to city.

Long lines of travelers attempting to rebook or make connections were witnessed at Southwest ticket counters at multiple US airports on Tuesday, while huge piles of unclaimed bags continued to grow as passengers struggled to reclaim their luggage in airports including Chicago’s Midway International, Harry Reid in Las Vegas and William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.

He added: “It is frustrating for the pilots, the flight attendants and especially our passengers. We are tired of apologizing for Southwest, the pilots in the airline, our hearts go out to all of the passengers, they really do.”

Thousands of Delta pilots picketed at major airports this summer, calling for higher pay and highlighting staff concerns as passengers faced flight cancellations during the Fourth of July holiday rush. Last month, Delta pilots voted to authorize a strike after negotiations for a new contract were paused.

The Southwest Airlines Holiday Season: What Have We Learned? J. Scott’s Cheap Flight, the Atlanta International Airport, and the Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Relief is still a few days away for passengers booked with Southwest Airlines this week, as the beleaguered airline continues to grapple with what US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has referred to as a complete meltdown of the system.

Airports most affected by the Tuesday cancellations are Denver International, followed by Chicago Midway International, Baltimore/Washington International, Nashville International, Dallas Love Field and Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.

In reducing the company’s flights by two thirds, Southwest should have “more than ample crew resources to handle that amount of activity,” Watterson said.

It had been a tough day. In all likelihood we’ll have another tough day tomorrow as we work our way out of this,” Jordan said in an interview Monday evening with WSJ.com.

People at Atlanta International Airport spoke to CNN about their travel experiences with Southwest during the holiday season.

Customers were not able to speak to a representative because of calls made to Southwest’s customer service by CNN. Southwest told CNN that it is staffed to answer calls.

If you’re left in the lurch and don’t know where to go, the founder of Scott’s Cheap Flight suggests calling an international number.

The main hotline for airlines in the United States will be busy with other passengers getting re booked. Scott Keyes said to call any of the airline’s international offices to get through to an agent quickly.

Jay McVay, president of the Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, said at a press conference on Monday that the storms had affected many of their larger stations and that the cancellation numbers were in the hundreds to a thousand.

“With those cancellations and as a result, we end up with flight crews and airplanes that are out of place and not in the cities that they need to be in to continue to run our operations.”

McVay said that the company’s first priority right now is safety. He stated that they want to make sure that they operate the flights safely and that they have enough time to do so.

“We will do everything that we need to do to right the challenges that we’ve had right now,” he said, including “hotels, ride assistance, vans … rental cars to try and make sure these folks get home as quickly as possible.”

McVay advised that if you have already left, then take care of yourself, do what you need to do for your family, and keep your receipts. We will make sure that they are taken care of.

Southwest Airlines, Greyhound, and WFLA: Melting Down the U.S. Air Lines During the November Fly-in Black Hole Event

An announcement made in the terminal prior to the news conference apologized to customers, and said the next available SWA seats are on Saturday, December 31st and later. Southwest was going to provide buses to hotels and we would have rooms for all customers, according to the agent.

The US Department of Transportation formally warned Southwest Airlines on Thursday that it will face consequences if it fails to do right by stranded and inconvenienced passengers.

Mike Santoro, vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, told CNN that they’ve been harping on them since 2015.

“We’ve been having these issues for the past 20 months,” he told CNN. The meltdowns occur more frequently because they have to do with outdated processes and outdated IT.

When asked about the airline’s processes, he said they haven’t changed since the 1990s. “It’s computers, phones, and the programs that connect us to airplanes, that’s where the problem lies, and it’s systemic throughout the entire airline.”

Buffalo International Airport said in its most recent tweets it won’t reopen until after 11 a.m. on Wednesday, which pushes back the reopening by another 24 hours.

— Greyhound, the largest provider of intercity bus service, issued a service alert on Monday afternoon stating many of its scheduled services in the upper northeast will be canceled or disrupted until further notice due to winter weather. The affected cities are Buffalo, Cleveland and Syracuse.

Officials have said a combination of severe winter weather, staffing shortages and technological issues led to cancellations and delays that left people stranded in airports across the nation and unable to travel for the holidays.

In a recorded video, Mike van de Ven said that the company was not where it wanted to be with staffing and flight crews. A transcript of the recording was shared with CNN at the time. “We simply need more staffing cushion for the unexpected in this environment and we are bringing new people on board every day,” he said.

Southwest acknowledged the company’s outdated infrastructure. In a memo obtained by CNN, the CEO Bob Jordan said that the operation needed to be modernized.

“Part of what we’re suffering is a lack of tools,” Jordan told employees. We need to do a lot of modernizing in order to do that.

Later that month, on a call with Wall Street analysts, then-CEO Gary Kelly said the company had made adjustments to prevent a similar meltdown in the future.

Kelly said that capacity plans have been reined in and on time performance has improved. “We are aggressively hiring to a goal of approximately 5,000 new employees by the end of this year, and we are currently more than halfway toward that goal.”

The airline has also begun notifying customers that it expects to fly a “full schedule” on Friday, after more than a week of massive flight disruptions.

Southwest’s scheduling system hasn’t changed a lot since the 1990s. The scheduling system was the main cause of the outage, according to Andrew Watterson.

US Senator Maria Cantwell, who chaired the Senate committee hearing last year, issued a statement Tuesday pledging the panel would be looking into the causes behind Southwest Airlines cascade of flight cancellations.

On Thursday last week, Taylor McClain’s morning flight from Salt Lake City to Chicago Midway was canceled. He rebooked for a 3 p.m. that didn’t end up departing until 9 p.m.

McClain’s return to Utah has been even more harrowing. He was scheduled to leave Chicago late Monday. It was canceled. He’s been able to change it for Thursday night.

An Aviation Analyst’s View on the Status of Southwest Airlines – Hispanics, Experience, and Technology Challenges for a Leaner System

At least he’s lucky to be with his parents, but “I will burn multiple days of unplanned vacation and absorb four days worth of extra kennel fees for the dog I can’t get back to,” he says.

Southwest needs to bring in internal software systems that are up to date, according to Helane Becker, an aviation analyst with a financial services company.

Becker says that it’s not only the customer-facing systems but also the crew scheduling and so on. Southwest has always been behind when it comes to technology.

Many airlines use a hub and spoke system where they route flights through a few big airports. Southwest has always prided itself on using a point to point system. It is a leaner system that means lots of complex scheduling challenges to get planes, pilots and flight crews in the right place at the right time.

“What you’re doing with Southwest is, you’re checking a bag from the first city to the second city, and then rechecking it into the third city,” he said. “You’re looking at the bag from the origin city all the way to the destination with American, Delta or United.”

Skyler Lenz’s flight was canceled by the time his plane went off the runway in Denver, exactly the same day as his flight

When it comes to weather, you have all sorts of pilots and flight attendants that can no longer get to where they need to be because quite often flight crews don’t live in the same city. Everything is out of position when there’s bad weather.

One of those passengers, Skyler Lenz, lives with his wife and two young children in Denver. His daughter’s birthday was celebrated with his family in New York City, where they were having a wedding anniversary.

The family flew out on the 21st, and planned to fly home on Christmas Eve. Just before they departed for the airport, Lenz checked his phone app “to make sure everything was good.”

It wasn’t very good. The plane was on the runway. He was on the phone for a long time, but couldn’t reach an agent. He was able to rebook by using an app on his phone. He got in touch with an agent on Monday. He asked, “Do you think this is going to be resolved by the time we fly out?”

The agent reassured him, and even moved the flight to the 27th. “But that’s when everything started to get canceled,” he says — including his Tuesday flight.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/27/1145616523/southwest-airlines-flight-cancellations-2022

On the Delay, Cancellations, and Operations of Southwest Airlines During the December 11, 2010 Eleventh Anniversary of the First Flights

Finally, the family decided to rent a car and drive back to Denver — a 26-hour drive. “There’s a place about halfway through in Illinois that’s 13 hours from here and 13 hours from from Denver. We want to take a brief break at the hotel and then pick it up again Thursday night to make sure we’re there.

“It is going to take a long time for Southwest Airlines to earn back public trust. While the extreme weather affected other airlines, Southwest experienced a true meltdown at the worst possible time,” he said Thursday in an email to CNN Travel.

But industry analyst Potter says the airlines’ failures mean customers end up paying the price. As long as the carriers are allowed to keep running those razor thin margins, there will still be delays and cancelations.

The mass cancellations have travelers at airports waiting in line for two or more hours to rebook their new flights, which, unfortunately, won’t occur anytime soon. Passengers are sleeping on airport floors while they wait for a new flight due to the fact that they don’t have any new flights until after the New Year.

Buttigieg met with the CEOs of major domestic airlines and asked them to detail how they’d fix operations in writing after thousands of flights were canceled due to staffing shortages.

You will hear about that soon, as we are working to make this up to you. But for now, we’re focused on restoring the reliability and level of customer experience we expect of ourselves, and you expect of us.”

When Southwest contacted Trisha Jordan to apologize for her experience on a flight to Florida, and she filed a letter warning against the airline due to mass cancellations

After disembarking from a cruise at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, passenger,Trisha Jones, and her partner had traveled for five days trying to get home to Kansas.

Jones said they were able to rent a car so they could go see his family for Christmas in the bay area. “We’ve seen a lot of families who are sleeping on the floor, and it just breaks my heart.”

In a letter to Southwest’s CEO, Pete Buttigieg warned that the airline’s failure to reimburse passengers for alternative transportation costs and give refunds and hotels would result in an action by the transportation secretary. The department’s penalties include the ability to levy fines.

Democratic senators who have previously proposed clarifying such rules during flights called on Southwest to give significant monetary compensation to customers whose holidays have been ruined.

“While all of the other parts of the aviation system have been moving toward recovery and getting better each day, it’s actually been moving the opposite direction with this airline,” said Buttigieg.

While Jordan acknowledged problems with the company response, the statement suggested that he did not foresee massive changes to Southwest’s procedures in response to the mass cancellations.

“Clearly, we need to double down on our already existing plans to upgrade systems for these extreme circumstances so that we never again face what’s happening right now.”

“Every airline in the country is jam-packed right now, so your odds of even finding a seat — let alone at an even halfway decent price — get smaller by the hour,” Potter said.

Travelers in the thick of this should save all their receipts, even if they only have a rental car, according to Potter.

Cancellation and Rebooking of Southwest Airlines in the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Coronavirus Abrupt Decay: A Recommendation

American Airlines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines capped the prices on some of their flights to make it easier for stranded passengers.

One traveler posted a photo of a flight with American, Delta and United with more than $2,000 in cost. The passenger had a canceled Southwest flight.

“We continue to get people to their destinations as safely and quickly as possible this busy holiday season and our latest effort includes capping fares in select cities to make sure our flights are available to as many customers as possible,” Freed told CNN.

Making the travel nightmare worse, Southwest has a policy of not rebooking customers on rival airlines. Southwest Airlines does not have interline agreements with other carriers that would allow its agents to rebook passengers on a different airline, narrowing the options for stranded passengers.

When the coronavirus pandemic ground the transportation industry to a screeching halt in early 2020, the US government doled out more than $54 billion in aid to help pay employees and keep the systems from buckling.

The airline is expected to incur some serious losses because of its stock falling immediately after the holiday meltdown, and Southwest is facing a lawsuit for not properly refunding one passenger for a canceled flight. 25,000 frequent-flyer points will be given to passengers whose flights were significantly delayed or cancelled over the holidays.

The Effect of the Payroll Support Program on Airlines During the 2021 Air-Flight Pandemic and the 2020 Airline Traffic Data

[The pandemic aid] “is water under the bridge at this point,” said Robert Mann, a Port Washington, New York-based airline industry analyst. The only distinguishing factors at this point are whether degree carriers have fulfilled their obligations and are able to either return to paying dividends or return to paying higher officer salaries.

When air travel went down in 2020, the government provided financial assistance to the airlines. The transportation sector is prone to layoffs and delays due to the fact that pilots are subject to training requirements and other certifications that can cause significant disruptions to air travel.

The Payroll Support Program, which started in March 2020 and was reupped two times in 2021, was similar in nature to the Payroll Protection Program that was meant to help smaller businesses keep employees paid and working during the pandemic.

The airlines had to use the funds exclusively to pay wages, salaries and benefits, and only for specific periods of time, so they weren’t allowed to lay off employees or issue dividends.

“It worked,” Gary Kelly, Southwest’s former chief executive officer, said in December 2021 during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing to examine the impact of the PSP.

The money received through the program was used for qualified employees’ salaries, wages, and benefits. We did not have to cut pay rates; we did not have to shorten hours; we did not have to lay off people. We actually raised our minimum pay to $15 per hour, effective August 1, 2021.”

Kelly noted that Southwest’s financially conservative approach that put it in a healthy position entering 2020, and the airline’s cost-cutting throughout the pandemic, had it on good footing for the future.

Two Democrats asked the Treasury Department’s inspector general to investigate, after Southwest and other airlines experienced staffing shortages, if any of the funds were used for the buyouts that ultimately contributed to service disruptions.

The PSP amounts were based on the carriers’ 2019 salary levels, which themselves were based on pre-pandemic flying levels. In April 2020, airline passenger traffic plummeted by over 1000% according to the US Government Accountability Office.

“No carrier was operating a 2019 level of flying,” Mann said. Many carriers have cut hours while saying no layoffs. voluntary separation agreements that paid less hours and salary dollars over a defined future period has been initiated by many others.

He said that it could have been as simple as fuel, interest payments and other overheads. The idea that a carrier would pay for IT upgrades that they didn’t need is not realistic.

“Now that the problem has occurred, and at [the Department of Transportation] and the market’s urging, I suspect the carrier has a different view of what IT upgrades are necessary,” he said. “They’ll spend their own money now to research, develop and implement new systems.”

Reply to Senators Markey and Blumenthal on Southwest’s “Case of Avoidable” Holiday Cancellations”, [Journal Press Release]

Democratic Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut issued a new letter Tuesday calling on Southwest to pay up for what they say were avoidable holiday cancellations.

“After days of trying to operate as much of our full schedule across the busy holiday weekend, we reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up,” he said.

In an interview with PBS Newshour, Buttigieg described such practices as “unacceptable” and threatened to hold the airline to its own stated intentions.

“We’re going to expect them to go beyond the letter of the law in terms of how they treat passengers, making sure they pay for things like hotels, ground travel expenses, meals and of course, refunds,” Buttigieg said.

“Employees were left to their own devices. […] They weren’t given the tools to do their jobs, nor were they given the leadership to answer questions and be able to provide solutions,” he told NPR’s Morning Edition.

The airline industry says that regulations put a cost burden on the customer, and they have long been wary of them. And Murray agrees that Southwest is better suited than, say, the DOT, to decide what needs to change.

Congress is watching the airline to see if it will compensate its customers. The Senate Commerce Committee will launch an investigation, its chair said on Tuesday.

Any passenger who is bumped from their flight will be entitled to a cash refunds for the full amount, plus any additional purchases such as bag fees or seat assignments.

Southwest says that all customers traveling through Jan. 2, 2023 have the option to rebook or travel standby without fees. But for those looking to get a cash payment, the company has opened a special self-service portal for processing.

The Fault in the Air: An Algorithmic Analysis of the Southwest Airlines Flight Search and the Buckley-Murphy Correspondence

William J. McGee is a senior fellow for Aviation and Travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, and he said the meltdown was the worst he had ever seen.

We’re encouraged by the progress we’ve made to realign crew, schedules and our fleet. “We know our deepest apologies to our customers, employees, and all affected by this disruption will only go so far,” the statement read.

Some affected customers are still waiting to get their luggage back. It’s been over two weeks since Southwest cancelled Brittney Buckley’s flight from Denver to Chicago on Dec. 21. She does not know where her luggage is.

But their luggage, the pair soon found out, did make it to Denver without them. Murphy’s father-in-law found two of their suitcases while driving to the airport. There are Christmas gifts and Murphy’s medication in a third of the pile.

Murphy has racked up hundreds of dollars in costs since she hasn’t found her suitcase, including transporting herself from the airport to swap her belongings.

Elimination of the Liabilities Shield of Airlines Using a Point-to-Point System: The Buckley-Nearby-Flight Case

The point to point system was used by airlines until 1978 when the federal government took control of the industry. Now, most major airlines instead follow a hub-and-spoke system where routes are connected to a major hub.

“After a summer of flight cancellations, delays, and withheld refunds, eliminating the airlines’ liability shield will shift the power back to consumers, state AGs, and state courts and legislatures, forcing the airlines to finally stop mistreating and cheating flyers,” McGee said in a press release announcing the model legislation.

After Brittney Buckley’s flight from Denver to Chicago, where her family lives, got canceled, she was able to rebook another flight that got her there days before Christmas.

A flight from Houston to West Palm Beach, Florida, wasn’t canceled or delayed. But while the Ph.D. student arrived home on time, her baggage still has not arrived; she ended up wearing her mother’s clothes for the holiday. She said she spent $500 to finish her travels because she didn’t have enough money. Ms. Neary spoke to Southwest about the missing luggage, but she didn’t expect to see it again for weeks. She said in a text message that it was in Baltimore.

She said she was one of many people waiting in a corporate machine to get an answer. “And I know we don’t have that much power. I’m waiting until a few days have passed so I can get an update on my luggage. At this point, I have written it all off.”

A New Perspective on Airline Service Cancellation Rates during the Covid-19 Fluctuation: A CNN Analysis for 2022 to September 2020

The dire situation, which has flustered passengers and caught the eye of government regulators, has become worse this week as other major airlines recover from the winter weather that hit the United States over the holiday weekend.

“We know our deepest apologies to our customers, employees, and to all affected by this disruption only go so far,” the statement read.

Cancellation rates among airlines fluctuate year-to-year, depending on weather and other factors, such as Covid-19, which resulted in a major industry-wide disruption in the early months of the pandemic in 2020.

The bureau has only released data for 2022 through September. CNN only analyzed the carrier’s data in the previous years to make sure it was a fair comparison.

United, American and Delta typically fly from smaller markets to hubs, requiring passengers flying between small cities to change planes. The model has an advantage over the other one of quickly flying crews and planes out of the hub to where they are needed.

Southwest built a delicate house of cards that could easily fall apart when the company encountered a problem because of manual scheduling.

“They would make great progress, and then some other disruption would happen, and it would unravel their work,” Watterson said. “So, we spent multiple days where we kind of got close to finishing the problem, and then it had to be reset.”

Rejuvenating Southwest Airlines: Michael Quidort’s Case for a Non-Gaussian Flight Annihilation

“I had to rebook on United,” said Michael Quidort, 32, who was traveling home from Raleigh, N.C., to Chicago when his Southwest flight was canceled. He claimed he paid $295 for United and tried to submit a claim, but the system crashed after he tried. He plans to keep trying, but said he is “not that hopeful” that he’ll get reimbursed. “Everything has just been a mess with them and I don’t have a lot of faith in them turning this around any time soon,” he said.

“In 2023 we will continue our work, from accountability for Southwest Airlines to further progress supporting all airline passengers through action on enforcement, rulemaking, and transparency,” Buttigieg, tweeted on Dec. 31.

We are encouraged by the progress we have made with our crew and fleet. We are looking forward to returning to state of normality after another long weekend with important connections for customers and employees.

Prior to the new announcement, the airline’s chief commercial officer promised to rebuild customer relations that have sunk to rock bottom during the holiday travel season after offering his regrets over the collapse of services.

“My personal apology is the first step of making things right after many plans changed and experiences fell short of your expectations of us,” Green said in a video issued Thursday.

His comments, which follow earlier apologies from airline CEO Jordan, came as Buttigieg made his own assessment of Southwest’s troubles.

Hister said that not having long lines may speak to the improvements that Southwest is trying to make. So, maybe you know, the efforts to redeem themselves are working.”

As extreme winter conditions swept much of the country last week — including important airports in Southwest’s network — Southwest’s plan for “irregular operations” passed the breaking point, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.

They and the airline itself described an internal process that requires multiple departments to manually redesign the airline’s schedule — a system that works “the vast majority of the time,” the airline said in a statement.

When something goes wrong, the Southwest software — including the crew scheduling system tool — leaves much of the work of rebuilding that delicate network to be done manually.

“It can’t see the best way to fix anything when flights are canceled,” said Brian Brown, president of Transport Workers Union Local 550, representing Southwest dispatchers and meteorologists. It needs human intervention and human eyesight to handle so much.

“We don’t know where our crews are at, where our planes are at, because the airline officials don’t necessarily know that,” Brown said. Crew schedulers in another department are manually checking which pilots and flight attendants meet strict federal rules on work hours — rules meant to keep inflight safety professionals from excessive fatigue.

The Southwest Airlines breakdown was described by Elaine Chao, who served as secretary of transportation during the Trump administration.

She told CNN it was “a perfect storm of all the things that have been going on with the company. She said that it will take them a long time to rebuild trust with consumers.

The Final Minute of the Southwest Airlines Meltdown: The Annihilation of a St Louis Bride-to-be and a Baggage Delivery Event

The bride-to-be from St Louis was forced to postpone her wedding because her Southwest flight was canceled at the last minute.

“We went to the the airport, our flight was on time, and when we were getting ready to board, the captain came out, gave a speech and basically told us the flight was canceled,” she told CNN.

“While Southwest is being vague on how much they will reimburse, I would avoid any expensive hotels or restaurants. Use Google Hotels to find nearby hotels near the airport where you are stranded.”

“Do a few Google searches such as ‘free things to do near me.’ I doubt Southwest is going to reimburse tours or other paid activities, so I would not book any expensive excursions that you cannot afford.”

The airline’s old computer system that was used to schedule crews was broken down, turning other challenging weather-related disruptions into what experts have dubbed an “unprecedented” airline meltdown.

It was a frigid minus 3 degrees in Denver, but the family had packed their winter coats and had only the warm-weather clothes they’d put on that morning in California. When they returned to Memphis, they had to wait in line with other travelers to check out their luggage, which had been in Denver the entire time.

Given all the chaos she’s witnessed this week, Proveaux figured she’d never see her bags again. But on Wednesday night, to her shock, the luggage was delivered to her door.

An apology statement from Southwest Airlines on social media: Southwest Airlines says it had to pull a passenger off the plane and be sick during the holiday season

In an apology statement late Wednesday — and again on a media briefing call on Thursday — Southwest said passengers can apply online for baggage returns, flight refunds and travel expenses from this week’s disruption.

The company has faced criticism for its outdated scheduling software and communications systems, as well as the impact that has on employees.

“I had to pull him off my plane, when he was trying to go home to see his family, so he could go work another flight just because he was at the airport,” she says.

Randy Barnes, president of the Transport Workers Union’s Local 555, which represents Southwest employees, said in a statement Wednesday that many Southwest ground workers had to work 16- or 18-hour shifts during the holiday season and were getting sick and experiencing frostbite.

One of the main things that makes social media so powerful is that it can be used in a situation and take you to the center of it.

This video was posted by Hillary Chang, who is a Southwest Airlines fan. Chang loves to travel with her boyfriend and is a very loyal Southwest customer. I have a Southwest credit card. We actually only fly Southwest.”

What Happened to Chang’s Bag in the TikTok Movie? The Civil Rights Defender’s Perspective on the Southwest Airlines Prevalence

The scene of the TikTok movie was spread out in front of them at the baggage claim. What Chang didn’t mention was that her boyfriend had recently proposed and (while the ring itself was on her finger) the ring box was in her checked bag and she had been hoping to save it as a keepsake.

She says in the TikTok that the Houston airport looks like it. It’s enough to make any frequent flyer’s blood run cold.

Social media is magnifying the black eye for Southwest. There have been many images and videos of people’s harrowing travel experiences on social media this week.

Posts like this one have millions of views and have commented on things like “Don’t fly Southwest” or “Southwest is going to get destroyed over this and rightfully so.”

“They’ve got the best reputation for customer service and management agility,” airline analyst Richard Aboulafia told NPR. They’re pretty good at responding to crises.

Chang and her fiancée were in Houston and saw a lot of rollerboards and huge lines of travelers.

They rented a car and drove the 21 hours back to LA. The road trip was a long one, which involved driving through the night in order to get back to work on time. The TikTok did yield some fruit — one of Chang’s friends sent her $50 for gas, wishing the couple well on their long drive.

Hillary Chang said that she had 50,000 miles with her, and that her bag had been lost in the Southwest. She says she’s been thinking about it. I am willing to date another airline.

The big question on everyone’s mind: Can Southwest now deliver? As air traffic picks up Friday morning, the picture will become clearer.

If those planes are back up in the air and the mounds of stacked-up luggage are reduced, it certainly would be a relief for passengers — and for the company. There is a mark on its back.

Top US government officials are disconcerted, to say the very least, about how Southwest got to this point in the aftermath of a massive winter storm that every other major US airline had under control days ago.

Winston Williams, standing near Hister, said he intends to still use the airline in the future. “I like Southwest. “The bags are free,” Williams said.

Mr. Mann predicted that it would be a case-by-case basis. Booking an expensive flight might mean you had a serious obligation you couldn’t miss, he said. “My advice is to hold onto your receipts, use the Southwest tool, and see how it goes,” he said.

Ms. Nastro also wondered whether passengers who incurred nonrefundable expenses — including for Airbnbs and all-inclusive hotels — would be covered under Southwest’s vague reimbursement policy. There are a lot of cases like that, she said.

The Southwest Pilot Christmas Meltdown: A Memorino of the Past, 2011 Christmas Break, and the Journey Unlocking the World

People are stuck at the airport for Christmas. Flight attendants and pilots are sleeping. Vast piles of luggage — some with presents inside, some with medication — stuck in the wrong airport. Travelers were stuck on hold for more than an hour.

The president of the union that represents Southwest pilots said the Christmas meltdown was catastrophic but that he wasn’t surprised by it.

And of course, there’s no reimbursement for missing Christmas with your family, or spending a night on an airport floor with a cranky toddler and no luggage.

Gary Kelly still reigns supreme on the board of this company despite having oversaw the decisions and setting the conditions that made this most recent fiasco possible, according to the Vice President of the Southwest pilots union. “I, for one, am tired of seeing my Company’s good name, and in some cases our fellow employees’ reputations, dragged through the mud in national media.”

“I can’t say it enough how sorry I am for the impact these challenges have had on our employees and our customers,” he said. We aim to do the right thing when we fall short of expectations, as we have a long and proud record of delivering on expectations.

CNN Travel has a weekly newsletter, called Unlocking the World, that you can sign up for. Get news about destinations opening, inspiration for future adventures, and the latest in aviation, where to stay and other travel developments.

Weather Warnings from the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as a Result of American Airlines Airlines’ Meltdown Over the Holidays

The airline, which had an operations meltdown over the holidays, issued a winter weather waiver on Sunday and extended the waiver on Monday to eight airports in Texas and Oklahoma. The waiver applies to travel from January 30 to February 1.

American Airlines issued a waiver on Sunday for Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) that applies to travel from January 29 to February 2. American had canceled 115 flights in the US by Monday.

Dallas Love Field tweeted on Monday that its team “stands ready to treat and clear surfaces to allow for safe operations.” DFW is also preparing for bad weather.

The weather will also make for treacherous road conditions. Up to a half an inch of ice or sleet is possible in parts of Texas, the National Weather Service warns. Ice accumulation is expected across at least 15 states, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said.

The governor of Arkansas encouraged Arkansans to avoid travelling if they can, and to listen to warnings of local officials.

There’s a winter storm warning in effect for a large portion of Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area, until 6 a.m. Central Time on Thursday, February 2.

Flavor Dynamics and Scheduling in the Exclusion and Re-booking of Southwest Airlines after the Tevatron Fly-Integer Meltdown

The fiasco prompted a wave of blowback from fliers and employees, sparked a Department of Transportation investigation and cost the company as much as $825 million.

He also says that the travel meltdown’s key weakness is its inability to communicate between crews and crew scheduling teams, a key point of weakness.

And the carrier has added more flights in 2023, which officials say will make it easier to re-book customers if and when flights are disrupted because of bad weather or other issues.

Watterson says the airline has hired Oliver Wyman, a management consultancy firm, to make recommendations on how to improve performance on bad weather days, among other areas. Two reviews will help determine which sequence of improvements is most appropriate in terms of supporting our Customers, Employees, and technology infrastructure.

The COO finishes his testimony by acknowledging the steps Southwest has taken for customers affected by the flights being canceled.