<p>Between Thanksgiving and now, we flew 14 flights on SW. None was anywhere close to bad weather with destinations in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. The appraisal? </p>
<p>Not a single flight departed or arrived on time. Delays between 90 minutes to four hours. Four flights were summarily cancelled. Boarding was the usual joke of a system after delays and rerouting. </p>
<p>After they changed the rewards program to the current poor version, there are few reasons to love the “little” airline. The free baggage is great, but with lower fares with others and credit cards subsidies on fees, the differences are small or nil. </p>
<p>It has been great but the love affair is over. The delays in 2013 are borderline organized fraud with PLANNED cancellations when the planes are not full with cattle. </p>
<p>On paper, they offer many flights between the Bay Area and my destinations in the Southwest. The delays did NOT use to be that bad. And I had plenty of grandfathered travel coupons from the good ol’ days when they accepted Amex. </p>
<p>For the record, I can live with the seasonal delays, but you have to admit that o-14 is not a great record of late. A three hours flight without change turning into an 11 hours journey on a low travel day is getting old.</p>
<p>I tolerated United for a while until I couldn’t stand it any more. D2 is stranded down in FL because of weather (not due to warm weather) and she is flying Delta. Xiggi - I think you are lucky that you are on a flight.</p>
<p>D1 flew them from the east coast to Midwest a few days before Christmas. </p>
<p>Leg 1 - Cancelled, given another flight next day.
Leg 1, Day 2 - Late, but she was told she would make her connection in St. Louis. She made it – but barely, only because the 2nd leg was late as well (and they were not holding it for passengers, it was just late…)</p>
<p>She flew home today, this time through Atlanta.</p>
<p>Leg 1 - Departed on time, although lines were crazy long in the terminal. Fortunately I dropped her off 2 hours before her flight time, so she made it.
Leg 2 (out of Atlanta) - Departed an hour late…</p>
<p>So that is 1 out of 5 attempted legs that was on time (or flew at all). We have LOVED Southwest in the past, but this isn’t great.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think sometimes people put too much stock in on-time arrivals, to the point where there is pressure to do unsafe things, like take off on with a mechanically compromised jet, descend too close to another plane, or take off or land in unsafe weather, in order to arrive “on time.”</p>
<p>I’d <em>much</em> rather be late–even if it meant missing a connection–than be a crash or crisis situation.</p>
<p>The fourteen flights were not all mine individually. I had six and my immediate family the rest. However, all of us were involved with airport pickups and transportation. Three days in a row a flight scheduled to land in Texas at 11pm arrived after 3 am. I was on one of them and on pickup duties for my sister and GF. </p>
<p>Thank God for wireless connections and batteries.</p>
<p>PS Remember this is without weather conditions as it is all in the West and SW. Perhaps this is normal in Chicago or NYC when the weather turns nasty. I know people have had it worse than me, but I can’t vent about the experiences of others. ;)</p>
<p>I think it’s luck of the draw, really. Flown most major carriers, and had good and bad on all of them. </p>
<p>A HUGE surprise this holiday season was Sun Country. Never heard of them, but man they had great customer service both in the airport and on board. And cheap fares. Too bad they don’t fly where we go most.</p>
<p>Yes, shellz, that is the issue with Sun Country. Not only do they have a limited list of cities, but some of their cities don’t have service all year (only in certain seasons of the year). I do go to their website to check fares – at least in the past they did not show up on the aggregating websites, although I thought I saw them on one a few months ago… so maybe that has changed.</p>
<p>I don’t think any other airline would be any better; we have had terrible experiences with Delta and US airways. I am loyal to SW because of no change fees (with a D in college far away this is very valuable) and the ease of using points for any flights. I have enough US airways points for a free round trip flight, but have not been able to use it because I can’t plan that far ahead.</p>
<p>United & Newark are just an awful combination. Newark is famous for late departures & arrivals. Combine that with the lack of service on Continental/United and BAM - you have unbeatable combination.</p>
<p>On th flip side Jet Blue is generally a pleasant ride - their employees actually getthe concept of customer service - customer service on United is non-existent.</p>
<p>"Honestly, I think sometimes people put too much stock in on-time arrivals, to the point where there is pressure to do unsafe things, like take off on with a mechanically compromised jet, descend too close to another plane, or take off or land in unsafe weather, in order to arrive “on time.”</p>
<p>I’d <em>much</em> rather be late–even if it meant missing a connection–than be a crash or crisis situation."</p>
<p>Actually, all three of these issues are regulated by the FAA, resulting in either the airline facing significant fines (or being shut-down if it more than an occasional instance), or the Pilot in charge losing his license, or both. So, these aren’t issues to worry about. </p>
<p>The issue is that the airline industry faces such miniscule cost margins that there less flights to the same location so they can maximize capacity per flight. Results in a scheduling nightmare if just one jet in the schedule is delayed or mechanically unfit to fly. (Re-shuffling of the schedules and scrambling to jet a replacement jet). Bottom Line: this is not an issue for a particular airline, but for the entire industry. Unless everyone is willing to forgo the cut-rate prices of the Jet-Blues (and originally the SWs) of the world, you’ll simply have to get used to cattle-car airline travel, with the aggravating issues associated with it. </p>
<p>Not that I’m a paid shill for the airline industry. I just have a ton of friends who are a part of it. Trust me, they are just as frustrated…</p>
<p>I’ve been on SW seven times since October. Every flight was on time…except one on the most recent trip. SW was holding the aircraft for some folks and their luggage from a flight that was delayed by weather issues. I had NO PROBLEM with that delay as I would have wanted the same consideration for me…on a holiday weekend last flight out situation. </p>
<p>No other airline holds the flights. In fact many close the doors TEN minutes before the scheduled departure and you just miss the flight. To me, that is MORE annoying.</p>
<p>I have to wonder how many of those late departures are because SW holds for connections that are late?</p>
<p>ETA…I’d rather walk than route myself through Philly on USAir.</p>
<p>You might be flying from one sunny airport to another sunny airport, but that doesn’t mean the flight crew or the airline is.</p>
<p>My daughter flew from LAX to Jacksonville yesterday, through Atlanta, and her flight was delayed about 20 minutes, so when they got to Alt there was no gate for them. Another delay. Then the connecting flight was coming from Minneapolis, so it too was delayed (a good thing) then they changed the gate 2-3 times. It’s all part of holiday traveling.</p>
<p>My 2nd daughter is waiting right now in Denver to fly home. They texted me this morning that her flight was 30 minutes delayed, and now it is 1 hour. It’s direct, and no weather problems here, but I don’t know where that flight’s been today. Maybe in came in from Chicago.</p>
<p>If you want to avoid delays, travel as early in the am as you can. We like to take the late flight from denver because it is the only direct flight, but the price we pay is that it is often delayed a little.</p>
<p>I love SW because of the ability to switch flights, get a credit if the price goes down, free baggage. Sometimes there are cheaper flights, but they aren’t direct, and there are so many other costs involved.</p>
<p>I’m glad your experience was good, because ours was horrible. We decided to try them because of a great rate between Lansing and MSP during the holidays. We drive two hours to Lansing, only to find out there was an ice storm and the airport had no power. Sun Country was telling everyone that the flights were cancelled, but never updated their system. When we checked out flight, it still read “on time”. The airport personel told us they couldn’t officially “cancel” the flight because they didn’t have power (Couldn’t the idiots use their cell phone to call someone who COULD post the cancellation?) and couldn’t help anyone re-book, so we held for 30 minutes on the phone to get someone. We asked if we could drive to Chicago and fly out of there. They told us that we had to pay a $75 change fee and pay for the higher fare to fly out of Chicago to MSP. After haggling for 30 minutes, they agreed to book it for the same rate. We drove 4 hours to Midway, only to find out the flight was delayed 90 minutes. Again, the web site showed “on time”. On the return flight from MSP, with perfect weather, our flight was delayed again by 90 minutes. When we landed at Midway, it was still showing we took off on time. Five minutes after landing, they updated their system to show a 90 minute delay. We’ve never experienced this with any other airline.</p>
<p>I almost exclusively fly Southwest. My daughter flew out of LAX yesterday to Detroit and actually got there a few minutes early even with crazy weather going on in midwest and east. </p>
<p>I do not think I have ever, once, had a major delay on Southwest. My daughter had one but it was around one hour, and due to plane being used for connector being delayed for weather. </p>
<p>That’s crazy, xiggi. Do you have alternative airlines at your disposal, or are you stuck with them for future flights?</p>