The Buttigieg Letter: Southwest Airlines Can Repay You If You Can’t Obtain Refunds? A Public Comment on “An Investigation of Consumer Laws in America”

If Southwest doesn’t fulfill its promise to reimburse passengers for alternative transportation costs, officials will take action against it, according to the letter written by Pete Buttigieg. The department has the ability to levy fines as a penalty.

“When a flight gets canceled, passengers seeking refunds should be paid back promptly,” Buttigieg said. “We will try to get airlines to repay passengers’ money if that doesn’t happen.”

Bill McGee, an aviation consumer advocate with the American Economic Liberties Project, cites data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics showing that complaints filed against airlines for refusing to provide refunds soared in 2020 to more than 89,000, up 57 times from just about 1,500 in 2019.

If there was a problem, it was the fact that the airliner wouldn’t cancel the flight until the last minute because of the travel restrictions and the Pandemic. In those instances, airlines usually were not required to offer refunds, but many did offer vouchers or credit for future travel instead. Some vouchers and credits expired before people were able to travel again.

He said that the IT infrastructure for scheduling software was vastly outdated. It’s not able to handle the number of pilots, flight attendants we have in the system.

The Biggest Losers in Air Travel: A Case Study in Southwest Airlines After the Supercollider-Gridbos-Circumstable Double-Demice

But consumer advocate Bill McGee isn’t so sure. He says that the actions are really too little and late to make a difference. The biggest offenders here aren’t addressed.

He notes that one only relatively small U.S. carrier, Frontier, is being punished, along with five foreign carriers (six if you include Air Canada, which was fined by the DOT last year). And he agrees that Frontier “is one of the worst offenders.”

“Why is it that none of these other airlines have been fined?” Mc Gee is asking. “And why is it taking so long … why is it taking (almost) three years to investigate this, particularly since all the data is public?”

The latest round of enforcement from the US DOT is too late and leaves out the most egregious U.S. offenders.

Consumers can file air travel consumer complaints with the DOT by using either the online or phone form.

Southwest has two of their biggest hubs in Chicago and Denver where the storm hit hard. The tripledemic has caused people and their families to be sick with the flu and Covid.

While Southwest canceled over 2,600 of its flights on Tuesday, the trouble’s expected to extend well into this week, with data from Flight Aware indicating that the airline has already called off more than 2,400 flights on Wednesday and over 1,500 on Thursday. Southwest canceled nearly 3,000 flights on Monday. Southwest had the most flight cancelations on Tuesday, and other airlines only had a minimal amount of canceled flights.

“First things first, travelers who are still stuck waiting on Southwest and need to get somewhere should try to book a flight with another airline as soon as possible … right now, really,” said Kyle Potter, executive editor at the travel advice website Thrifty Traveler, in an email to CNN Travel late Tuesday afternoon.

Potter said this is as bad as it gets for an airline. “We’ve seen this again and again over the course of the last year or so, when airlines really just struggle especially after a storm, but there’s pretty clear skies across the country.”

Long lines of travelers trying to rebook or make connections at Southwest ticket counter were reported at multiple airports on Tuesday, while huge piles of unclaimed bags continued to grow in airports, including Chicago’s Midway International.

Southwest spokesperson Jay McVay said in a news conference at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport on Monday night the airline will do everything possible to right the challenges passengers have experienced, including “hotels, ride assistance, vans … rental cars to try and make sure these folks get home as quickly as possible.”

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.

How Will Southwest Airlines Get Around the Clogged Airline? Jay McVay, CEO of Scott’s Cheap Flights, whose customer service agent, Scott Keyes, and Nick Valencia, take care of themselves

Air travelers in the US hoping for clear skies on Tuesday following a disastrous week of weather-related flight cancellations and delays will have to extend their patience a few more days — particularly if they’re flying with Southwest Airlines.

Denver International is the most affected airport after Chicago Midway International, followed by Baltimore/Washington International and Nashville International.

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.

We had a difficult day today. 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.

Several people at the Atlanta airport spoke with Nick Valencia about their travel experiences with Southwest and why they love them.

Calls made Monday afternoon by CNN to Southwest’s customer service did not go through, so customers couldn’t even get in the queue to speak to a representative. Southwest told CNN that it is fully staffed.

If you’ve been left in the lurch and your efforts to reach a customer service agent are going nowhere, the founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights suggests trying an international number.

“The main hotline for US airlines will be clogged with other passengers getting rebooked. To get through to an agent quickly, call any one of the airline’s dozens of international offices,” Scott Keyes said.

“As the storm continued to sweep across the country it continued to impact many of our larger stations and so the cancellations just compiled one after another to 100 to 150 to 1,000,” Jay McVay said in a press conference at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport on Monday night.

There is no normal hub for us, which is the same as for the other airlines. We fly a point-to-point network, which can put our crews in the wrong places, without airplanes.”

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

He said that they would do everything they could to correct the challenges faced and that they would use cars, vans and hotels to get people home.

McVay said if you’ve already left, keep your receipts and take care of yourself. We will make sure they are taken care of.

A Breakdown in the Southwest Airlines Airline Network: A New Airline Service Alert for a Winter Weather Forecast in the Upper Mid-Nordwest

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 will be giving buses to hotels in the area and there will be adequate rooms for all customers, said the agent.

The United State Department of transportation is concerned about the large flight cancellation by Southwest Airlines.

The Southwest Airlines pilots’ association has been harping on them since 2015, according to Mike Santoro.

He said they have been having these issues for the past 20 months. “We’ve seen these sorts of meltdowns occur on a much more regular basis and it really just has to do with outdated processes and outdated IT.”

It all starts with phones, computers, processing power and the programs used to connect us to airplanes, which is where the problem lies.

— In hard-hit western New York, Buffalo International Airport said in its most recent tweet that it does not plan to resume passenger flights before 11 a.m. ET Wednesday, pushing back the expected reopening by another 24 hours later than previously anticipated.

— 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. Affected cities include Buffalo, Cleveland and Syracuse.

A winter storm that swept across the US was ill-timed for travelers who had started pushing Christmas week flying numbers back toward pre-pandemic levels.

The Southwest Employees’ Reactive Email System: Why the Southwest Flight System is Failover and How to Get Over Its Mishaps

The company’s phone system is not working, according to the president of T Workers Union Local 556. “They’re just not manned with enough manpower in order to give the scheduling changes to flight attendants, and that’s created a ripple effect that is creating chaos throughout the nation.”

Southwest CEO Bob Jordan, in a message to employees obtained by CNN, acknowledged many of Murray’s concerns, and promised the company will invest in better systems.

“Part of what we’re suffering is a lack of tools,” Jordan told employees. The need for modernizing the operation is something that we have discussed a lot.

Gary Kelly told analysts that the company had made some changes to prevent a meltdown like that in the future.

Kelly said on October 21 that capacity plans had been reined in to adjust to the current staffing environment. We are on track to meet our goal of 5,000 new employees by the end of the year and we are more than half way there.

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 problems are not just the result of the bad weather but staff shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the respiratory syncytial virus, according to analysts. Most important is an outdated computer system for crew scheduling that turned what would have been simply a challenging storm into a full-scale meltdown.

That failure has attracted the attention of Congress. The causes of these disruptions will be looked into by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation according to a statement released on Tuesday.

Chang and her boyfriend were booked on a Southwest flight on Christmas Day, from Baltimore to their home in Los Angeles, with a connection in Houston. They arrived in Houston hours late, only to learn their flight to LA had been canceled. They were told to get their bags and try to rebook.

It was even more frightening for him to come back to Utah. He had left Chicago late Monday. It was canceled. Now, the soonest he’s been able to reschedule is for Thursday night.

A Denver man’s frustration with Southwest Airlines and an airport traveler’s phone number: Checking an app to rebook a flight

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.

Helane Becker, an aviation analyst with Cowen, an investment bank and financial services company, says Southwest needs to bring those tools in the form of internal software systems.

The Southwest Airlines pilots association vice president told CNN they don’t have a normal hub. The crews are in the wrong places, because we operate a point-to-point network.

Southwest uses a “point-to-point” system that has planes flying from destination to destination and picking up staff along the way. One benefit of point-to-point systems is that they can offer direct and more affordable flights as the destinations they stop at have less air traffic. However, schedule can fall apart once one route gets canceled, which is why they favor point-to-point systems.

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

As a result, “when you get a weather situation like this, 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 are not based at the same city or they don’t live at the same city that they’re based out of,” she says. Things tend to get out of position when there is bad weather.

One of those people, who lived with his wife and two children, is in Denver. The family was visiting New York City, where they were celebrating together — a wedding anniversary and his daughter’s birthday.

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 good. The flight was called off. He was on the phone for hours, but couldn’t reach an agent. So, he used an app on his phone to rebook — for Dec. 28. He finally reached an agent on Monday. He asked, “Do you think this is going to be resolved by the time we fly out?”

The flight was moved to the 27th, after the agent reassured him. “Then that was when everything came to a halt,” he said, including his Tuesday flight.

Buying a Car to Drive a Family to Denver: What will they do? Southwest Airlines’ problems at the end of last year and what they will tell us when they do

After a lot of discussion the family decided to rent a car and drive back to Denver. “There’s a place about halfway through in Illinois that’s 13 hours from here and 13 hours from from Denver. So our goal is to take a quick breather at the hotel and then pick it up again so we can be there Thursday night,” Lenz says.

“It is going to take a long time for Southwest Airlines to earn back public trust. Southwest had a “true meltdown at the worst possible time,” he said 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 these razor thin margins, there will continue to be mass delays and cancellations.

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. A number of passengers report not getting new flights until the end of this week or after the New Year, forcing them to sleep on airport floors while they wait.

Southwest has canceled thousands of flights this week with no idea when passengers can re book. buttigieg spoke with Bob Jordan, the Southwest CEO, on Tuesday about that and other issues.

I made clear that our department will be holding them accountable for their responsibilities to customers, and to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, in order to get them through this situation.

Jones told CNN she and her partner were traveling for five days to return to Kansas after disembarking from a cruise at Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“We were fortunate, because we were in Fort Lauderdale — my family lives in the Tampa bay area so we were able to rent a car to go see my family for Christmas,” Jones said. Many families are sleeping on the floor and it just breaks my heart.

Travel Disruption at Southwest.com/AirportDelta: Remediation and Recommendations for a Jam-packed Airline System

“We’ve set up a page at Southwest.com/traveldisruption for customers to submit refund and reimbursement requests for meals, hotel, and alternate transportation; as well as to connect customers to their baggage.”

“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.

Jordan admitted that the company response was not perfect, but his statement suggested that there would be no large changes to Southwest’s procedures.

We need to double down on the plans we have for system upgrade so that we don’t have to deal with these kinds of circumstances again.

“Your chances of even finding a seat, let alone at a decent price, get smaller by the hour, because each airline in the country is jam-packed,” Potter said.

Travelers in the thick of the situation should save their receipts for other flights, lodging, meals and anything else, Potter said.

The price caps vary by location in areas affected by cancellations, an American Airlines spokesperson told CNN. Southwest didn’t reply to the request for comment.

A traveler posted a picture showing how much flights from San Diego to Orlando cost with American, Delta and United. The passenger was trying to rebook a flight.

“We are capping fares in select cities to make sure our flights are available to as many customers as possible”, Freed told CNN.

However, that’s still not mollifying questions about how the airline’s systems could allow things to go so wrong and demands they not happen again. The Department of Transportation is still firm with Southwest.

Southwest Airlines Will Not Give Up on the Holidays: A Pedestrian’s Call to Rethink Their Flight Operations at the Censorship House

We decided to reduce our flying on the busy holiday weekend after trying to operate as much of our full schedule as possible.

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

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

“Employees were left to their own devices. […] He told NPR’s Morning Edition that they weren’t given the tools to do their jobs or the leadership to answer questions.

The airline industry was concerned that regulations would put the cost burden on the customer. And Murray agrees that Southwest is better suited than, say, the DOT, to decide what needs to change.

Congress is also watching whether the airline will compensate customers. The Senate Commerce Committee will launch an investigation, its chair said on Tuesday.

Southwest customers can rebook or travel without a fee, through January 2, 2023. But for those looking to get a cash payment, the company has opened a special self-service portal for processing.

Democratic Sens. Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal, who’ve proposed clarifying such rules during previous flight snafus, issued a statement on Tuesday calling for Southwest to issue “significant monetary compensation” to customers whose holidays “have been ruined.”

The worst meltdown we’ve seen in a decade or so: Bri and Peter Murphy’s suitcases are still waiting for the flight to Denver

“I’ve never seen ameltdown like that, it’s the worst I think we’ve ever seen,” says William J. McGee, a senior fellow for Aviation and Travel at the American Economic Liberties Project.

“I want everyone who is dealing with the problems we’ve been facing, whether you haven’t been able to get to where you need to go or you’re one of our heroic employees caught up in a massive effort to stabilize the airline, to know is that we’re doing everything we can to return to a normal operation,” Jordan said in the video. “And please also hear that I’m truly sorry.”

Bri and Peter were going to fly from Nashville to Denver on Christmas Day. They were at the airport when Southwest kept delaying their flights and eventually cancelling them all. Now, they’re waiting to get on another flight.

But their luggage, the pair soon found out, did make it to Denver without them. Murphy’s father-in-law, who lives in Denver, was able to drive to the airport and find two of their suitcases. Murphy’s medication and Christmas gifts are still in the pile.

And while Murphy waits to be reunited with her suitcase, she continues to rack up hundreds of dollars in costs, transporting herself to and from the airport and replacing some of her belongings.

On the Status of the Denver Airport Point-to-Point System: An Empirical Study of the Failure of the Transportation Department under a Model Law

The point-to-point system, in which planes fly from one smaller airport to another, used to be the norm for airlines until the federal government deregulated airlines in 1978. Most airlines now follow a hub-and-spoke system where routes are connected to a hub.

Another issue, according to McGee, is the lack of oversight the airline industry has. The Department of Transportation would be removed from being the industry’s sole regulators under model legislation published in September by the American Economic Liberties Project.

Her flight to Chicago got canceled, but she was able to get a new one that took her there before Christmas.

Although the airline told her that her bags would be waiting for her in Chicago, the airtags, a tracking device by Apple, on her luggage — containing winter clothes, Christmas presents and her prescription medicine — showed that that they were still in Denver. She suspects that they’re somewhere buried under the mountains of bags that now litter the airport’s baggage claim.

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

The Southwest Airlines Cancelation Problem After a Great Holiday Break: CNN’s Analysis of Southwest Airlines’ Decree Over the Last Two Months

The dire situation, which has exasperated passengers and caught the eye of government regulators, has magnified this week as other major airlines recovered from the extreme cold, ice and snow that gripped much of the United States over the holiday weekend.

CNN’s analysis of flight data showed that the company reduced its capacity on Thursday by roughly two thirds, after apologizing to passengers and employees for the daily cancellations.

Over the years, the airline’s cancellation rate has crept up, tripling from 2013 to September 2022, the most recent data available from US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which tracks the airlines’ performance, and well before the recent crisis.

The bureau has only released data for 2022 through September. To ensure a fair comparison, CNN only analyzed the carrier’s data from January to September in previous years.

United,American and Delta require passengers on flights from smaller markets to change planes at the hub. But that model has the operational advantage of quickly flying crews and planes out of the hub to where they’re needed.

Watterson noted that manual scheduling left Southwest building an incredibly delicate house of cards that could quickly tumble when the company encountered a problem.

“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.”

A Southwest executive said in a Thursday morning message to customers that the airline is making “a pledge to do everything we can and to work day and night to repair our relationship with you.”

“We are encouraged by the progress we’ve made realigning crew, their schedules, and our fleet.” We are eager to return to normal after another holiday weekend of important connections for customers and employees.

Ryan Green’s apology and apology for the collapse of Southwest Airlines’ flights are the first step of making things right during the busy holiday travel period

The DOT formally warned Southwest Airlines on Thursday that it will face consequences if it fails to make right by stranded and inconvenienced passengers.

The airline’s Chief Commercial Officer Ryan Green apologized for the collapse of services before the latest announcement and promised to rebuild the customer relations that have collapsed during the busy holiday travel period.

“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 remarks, which follow earlier apologies from airline CEO Bob Jordan, came as US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made his own scathing assessment Southwest’s troubles, calling the situation a complete “meltdown.”

When asked what he thought about the lack of lines at the Southwest counters at the airport, Hister said: “Maybe speaks to the improvements that they’re trying to make, because there’s not long lines, people aren’t here complaining. So, maybe you know, the efforts to redeem themselves are working.”

Southwest’s plan for “irregular operations” in the wake of the extreme winter weather that swept the country last week passed the breaking point according to multiple people familiar with the situation.

The system that works the majority of the time requires multiple departments to manually redesign the airline’s schedule, according to the airline.

Much of the work of rebuilding that delicate network is done manually by Southwest software when something goes wrong.

When flights are canceled it is not possible to find the best way to repair them according to Brian Brown, president of Transport Workers Union Local 550. “It requires a lot more human intervention and human eyesight or brainpower and can only handle so much.”

The result is that officials don’t know where the crews are or where the planes are. The crew schedulers in another department check to make sure that pilots and flight attendants meet federal work hours regulations so that flight safety professionals aren’t overrun by fatigue.

Elaine Chao, who served as secretary of transportation in the Trump administration, called the breakdown of Southwest Airlines a failure of unbelievable proportions.

“Their system really has completely melted down,” Buttigieg told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “I made clear that our department will be holding them accountable for their responsibilities to customers, both to get them through this situation and to make sure that this can’t happen again.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/southwest-flight-cancellations-thursday/index.html

The Delay of Katie Demeko’s Flight to Belize: An “Unprecedented” Airlines Meltdown after a Blast-Up Flight

Among those affected was bride-to-be Katie Demeko from St. Louis, who had to postpone her wedding after her Southwest flight to Belize 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.

Southwest is vague on how much they will reimburse, so I wouldn’t stay in expensive hotels or restaurants. You can find hotels near the airport by using a service like GOOGLE HOTELS.

“Do a few searches for 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.”

But it was a breakdown of the airline’s old computer system used for crew scheduling that has turned otherwise challenging weather-fueled disruptions into what experts have called an “unprecedented” airline meltdown.

The family packed their coats and sweatshirts in the bitter Denver weather but forgot their warm-weather clothes because they were on their way to California. When they returned to Memphis, they had to wait in line with other people to check their luggage since their bags had already been in Denver the whole 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.

Social media and Southwest Airlines: A tribute to Hillary Chang, a Southwest Airlines fan, and a friend of Chang’s dad, J. P. Barnes

Passengers with baggage and flight refunds can apply online, Southwest said late Wednesday and again on a media conference call on Thursday.

The company has faced criticism for its outdated scheduling software and communications systems, and the impact that has — not just on passengers but also its employees.

She says that she had to pull him off the plane when he was trying to go home to see his family.

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 most powerful things about social media is that it can take you right into the heart of a situation: A Lizzo concert, a political rally, a Florida emu farm, a picnic where a young man expresses his devotion to corn…

Hillary Chang is a fan of Southwest Airlines. Chang says that she is a very loyal Southwest customer. “I have a Southwest credit card. We actually only fly Southwest.”

Magnifying the black eye for Southwest Airlines: The case of Chang and her family in TikTok, Calif., December 27-27

Chang doesn’t expect to see her suitcase or ring box again. “People keep telling me to stay positive, but if they would’ve seen what I saw at the Houston airport, they wouldn’t,” she says. “I can hope that maybe it will appear in a few weeks, but at this point, I think mentally I just have to be like, ‘It’s gone and that’s OK.’”

“This is what the Houston airport looks like,” she says in the TikTok, panning over hundreds of unclaimed suitcases. It’s enough to make any frequent flyer’s blood run cold.

Magnifying the black eye for Southwest is social media. The scope of the fail has been made more vivid by the number of pictures and videos of people’s harrowing travel experiences that have been posted all week on social media.

There are millions of views and comments on posts like this, and Southwest is going to get destroyed over this.

He says they have the best reputation for customer service. I am surprised they’re doing this because they’re usually good at responding to crises.

Chang and her fiancé realized they needed to fend for themselves after they saw the large number of frustrated travelers in Houston.

They drove the 21 hours back to LA. The road trip that Chang took involved driving through the night in order to be able to return to work on the morning of December 27. Chang’s friends sent her $50 to go for gas, Wishing the couple well on their long drive.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/29/1145996040/southwests-meltdown-social-media

Why I’m Not In Love with Southwest, but Are I Open to Dating Another Airlines?” a Physicist’s Comment on “Falling into the Jets with an Avatar from a Stranger’

“I have 50,000 miles with them … and I’ve been thinking about it, trust me. I’m not done with Southwest, but I am open. I’m open to dating another airline.”