@thumper I would have had D17 fly SW if she didn’t have to be home on a tight deadline. I had to book the flight back in March shortly after the planes were being grounded. I was reading reports of lots of cancellations, etc and didn’t know what the future would hold and whether that flight I would have purchased would end up being altered. I didn’t want to risk it plus Alaska had a fare sale so I didn’t want to want and then not have a seat for D17.
D23 is flying out to San Fran this summer - I’ll book her on SW if the fare is good. She’s has flexibility with flying to/from so if anything happened, it wouldn’t be an issue. I haven’t looked to see if the normal flights/routes are still being offered or if they had to switch things up.
I was scheduled to fly to New Orleans today on Southwest. They called me 3 and a half hours before my flight because the first leg of my flight was delayed at least an hour which meant I would miss the second leg. I couldn’t get to the airport for an earlier flight so they rescheduled me at no extra charge on a flight of my choice tomorrow. This has never happened to me before, but I am thrilled! The only reason I was going today is because the flights tomorrow were so expensive! I don’t need to be in NOLA for graduation festivities until Friday so it worked out well for me.
I or DH fly SW about 5-6 RT flights each yr . Nearly every flight since 2018 had issues, so Max8 was not always the problem. About 3 had significantly late departures, and 2 involved cancellations post Max 8 grounding. Fortunately we built in enough flexibility each time, so that it did not cause issues, only hassles. My main complaint is that we were not alerted to the cancelled flights until much closer to departure time. I looked at flight schedules a few days before with no changes yet noted (and no weather issues expected). We usually need to leave home about 4 hours before a flight due to distance & transport, so last minute cancellations are an issue. Minor gripe is that we try to check in asap for decent boarding numbers, and always are one of the last to board when rerouted on a later flight. Still fly SW. The ability to easily change flights without penalty is the main reason. However as their prices seem to be increasing significantly on our routes, we’ll probably be looking elsewhere.
After re-certification, I would have no problem flying in them, or sending any of my family in them. I wouldn’t even check before flying, as the most dangerous part of my trip is in the car on the way to the airport.