Just got text from Southwest telling me....

[bbodb1]

...my return portion of my trip has been cancelled. The website does not indicate this - in fact my itinerary still shows the flight the text says was canceled.

Anyone else seeing this?

I should note the text came from the shortcode 70756.

 

[Sandy VDH]

Likely a 737 Max 8 leg. Call to reschedule.

 

[WinniWoman]

UGH! Definitely call and see what is going on. I hate flying...

 

[louisianab]

I just saw an article that all max8 flights are being rescheduled with more expensive flights not costing any extra. (SW has no change fees anyway)

 

[bbodb1]

What is weird is that when I log in to my SW airlines account, it says NOTHING about this. My original flight is still displayed and there is NO note about any problem with this flight.

One would think the app would show this info first....

 

[Talent312]

What is weird is that when I log in to my SW airlines account, it says NOTHING about this. My original flight is still displayed and there is NO note about any problem with this flight.

You might get a surprise when you try to check-in.
What did they say when you called?
.

 

[VacationForever]

I could not go in and change my SW flight and it came back with an error. It was not supposed to be on a Max8 or Max9 plane. Weird. I will call tomorrow.

 

[bbodb1]

You might get a surprise when you try to check-in.
What did they say when you called?
.

This too is weird because the rep insisted she did not know why the flight has been canceled and would only confirm that it had been canceled.

If indeed this cancellation was a result of grounding the Max 737 aircraft, I would think SW would have acknowledged this. Their refusal to offer any explanation and any compensation has left a very bad taste in my mouth.

 

[jehb2]

My American flight was changed due to max 737. Luckily the change was minor.

 

[mdurette]

SW entire knee jerk reaction to the Max aircraft issue is bizarre to me - it is no wonder why their system is having all these issues. The whole idea of anyone with flights to the end of the month can change their flights (on Max or not) to different flights and not pay the additional cost was just nuts. People are buying cheap flights and then moments later changing to higher priced flights and not paying the difference in airfare.

Personally, I benefited. I had a return flight originally for early this morning. Once they announced the change, I switched right away to flights that returned last night instead. They were the ones I originally wanted, but were $300 more at the time.

"Currently, we are offering flexible accommodations through Sunday, March 31. Due to high call volumes and extended hold times, we strongly encourage Customers to first check flight status at southwest.com. Customers who are holding reservations may rebook in the original class of service or travel standby (within 14 days of their original date of travel between the original city-pairs and in accordance with our accommodation procedures) without paying any additional charge."

 

[bbodb1]

To be fair, this set of circumstances certainly doesn't happen regularly (thankfully) but SWA hasn't handled this well. I talked to Customer Satisfaction this morning and they somewhat finally acknowledged the issue. Time will tell how SWA responds.

 

[bbodb1]

Now that I am back home, allow me to put something of a conclusion to this.
The conversation with SWA Customer Satisfaction went well as it seemed the representative was making notes during our conversation. The rep did authorize an adjustment (in the form of future travel vouchers) that was equivalent to one leg of the trip for both of us. That was better - really much better - than I was hoping for and does restore my faith in SWA. I should note that I never asked for any specific amount of adjustment - I just left the incident details with the rep and allowed her to run with any solution.

As noted previously, one would hope this sort of occurrence does not repeat itself but if it does, maybe SWA will take a different approach.
No business is immune from error but it is reassuring to see a company take measures to address a situation.

As an aside, Netflix could learn a lot from Southwest Airlines......