Agreed. It’s not incompetence. The experience is simply reflective of competence in adhering to the priorities that they/shareholders have laid out and regulators have acceded to. Like you said, Delta is a staggeringly well-run operation when you factor in the complexities inherent.
Also, Southwest’s integration with AirTran a few years back was wild. Their system couldn’t even handle international segments. (That transaction was also where Delta got all of their shitbox 717’s for next-to-nothing that they still fly religiously on short-hop mainline routes).
People who claim to work for SWA on Reddit are also saying the scheduling system has zero automation/verification for rescheduling crews during bad weather. So Crew A is supposed to go from Denver to Chicago, but doesn’t… and that needs to be called in and manually input in the system, then everything else needs to be rescheduled. No clue how true that is but if that’s the case then I would imagine a large scale weather event would destroy them like this.
Agree from top to bottom it is truly amazing how many people they move around daily. Yrmea there’s hiccups. There’s going to be. I’ve seen more in local ran businesses. Aviation is amazing, placed like Atlanta, Charlotte, lax that just streamlining planes and planes is an incredible thing. I love flying, biggest thing that helps enjoy the process to be is being patient while there and remembering your not the most important thing in the world. And things happen. Customer service i think is where things break down and they get the bad rubs.
I live in Southern California. I don’t fly for work and I don’t make a lot of money. The vast majority of my travel is inside of California or to Arizona. Delta/american/united are 2x, 3x, or 4x the price to fly on the routes I need. I’m completely priced out of any other carrier.
For that reason, I love flying southwest and will continue to.
HOWEVAH
The fact that this exact same thing literally happened last year and they very clearly have not done much, if anything, to fix the problem and prevent this issue is downright pathetic and possibly criminal. Unbelievable.
Yes, this was my situation. Not to mention over half the flights the majors have within CA are on their regional airline partners, so you’re flying on an ERJ/CRJ.
WN was always cheaper and my bags were free (unlike the ultra low-cost carriers). A lot of times it would have cost more in gas to drive home (LA to SJ) than it would to fly.
WN also started flying to Hawaii a few years back, which substantially drove down the prices the majors were charging. Now it’s not uncommon to fly from CA to Hawaii for less than $300. Crazy.
It does sound like their pricing aren’t working this way anymore or maybe not in other regions of the country. If that’s the case, WN simply doesn’t work.
Definitely agree with this sentiment, especially when flying within the two western time zones. Within CA or CA to AZ/LV it’s the best option. Not to mention, you can fly with clubs for free. The other thing that I appreciate with SWA vs the other big boys is the reward redemption, I’ve booked with <2k points for certain segments, with United you are locked into the tiers of 7.5k, 10k, 12.5k etc.
I will say tho, when looking to go across the country they do tend to be the most expensive option, especially out of SAN. I can usually get a direct on Jetblue or United to BOS or EWR from SAN for 2/3 the cost of a SWA flight with a stop.
I routinely fly from Sacramento to Burbank for under $100 round trip with zero issues.
This is a complete nightmare though. Definitely giving me second thoughts about ever booking them outside of a West Coast trip. Learning about their business operations is making my head spin.
Shoutout me for being on one of the 10% of Southwest flights that didn’t get cancelled this morning. Now trying to figure out if my return flight Thursday is cancelled after getting an automated text saying it was but everything online is saying it’s still good.
I have a good friend who lives in SF who told me he and his wife have started going to Hawaii regularly which I thought was nuts until he told me what flights cost. Also way less jet lag starting in CA instead of the east coast where we’re all from. Seems like an ideal vacation spot for left coasters
Yeah, up until the pandemic and having a baby, my wife and I would go at least once a year, sometimes more if we also go with family.
I just got back two weeks ago. We paid $290 for flights, round trip. We rented a 3 bedroom condo on the beach in Kihei for $800 a night (split between my dad, two sisters, wife/me) and used my corporate discount at Enterprise to get a full size for $35 a day. Cheap trip.
Damn. I’m holding out hope that mine either gets canceled asap so I can rebook or they get their shit together by Saturday. Worst case scenario is I get a hotel and rebook for the next day hopefully.
