Cancelled Flights

[scooter6139]

Our return flight on Friday was cancelled.  Earliest we could get back was Monday.  But at least the airline paid for the hotel and some food vouchers.

[NCMtnBoys]

I second checking other Florida airports - Jacksonville, Tampa, Ft Lauderdale, Miami... all served by major carriers other than Southwest. From any of those, you could rent a car for an easy drive to Orlando. 

 

We had a cancellation of the second leg of our flights Christmas day on Delta and despite an online search of six other departure airports in our region, all flights were full so we didn't get to take our trip. We learned of our cancellation at 11:00pm the night before our 7:00am first leg. I tried calling then too, and the wait was more than 5 hours (I've seen other say at some point they had a recorded message of a wait time of 17 hours). Thankfully we never took our first flight leg so we weren't stranded somewhere else. Lots and lots of baggage issues right now too.

 

I hope it all works out for you, I know it would be really disappointing to miss a cruise. Our next cruise is January 21st from Miami and we're flying on the 20th. Not Southwest, but issues can happen at all airlines, unfortunately.

[kitkat343]

3 hours ago, sunshine4me2 said:

Ok here's the latest update (BTW, thanks to everyone for reaching out to us with suggestions for a solution)

There are no flights that I can book from Chicago (MDW or ORD) to MCO.  Every other airline, United, Frontier, etc., either sold out or over $$1400 per seat, one way.

Called Trawick Safe Journey's Insurance, nope since I didn't purchase "Cancel for ANY reason", SWA's issues are NOT covered under our Trip Cancellation clause - weather related, yes, but not the fiasco that SWA is experiencing now.

So, our game plan now, booked for 10:40 am flight on Thursday, we are getting to MDW about 7 am, and hope for standby on any SWA flight to MCO for Thursday.  Just bought 2 new suitcases so we don't need to check bags and each of us with have a backpack. l It's either this or we lose what we paid for the cruise.

Not quite what I expected to spend NYE, on a new ship, in our golden years!

Hoping for the best!  But you know what I'm blessed that we both are healthy enough to travel at our ages, even if we don't get to go!  Life could be worse🙂

Have you also checked with your credit card?  Some provide travel protection and its at least worth emailing them.  So sorry about the insurance.  Not checking bags is a really good idea at this point - it'll give you a bit more flexibility.

Edited December 28, 2022 by kitkat343

[Sweetnspicy]

I don’t know if it’s an option but what about a Greyhound bus? I just did a quick Google search and saw this. It’s a long trip but maybe you could do a bus to somewhere else like Nashville and then a flight? 

[Sweetnspicy]

Another thought I had was driving to Louisville or another airport? I hope it works out for you! 

[Babr]

1 hour ago, kitkat343 said:

Have you also checked with your credit card?  Some provide travel protection and its at least worth emailing them.  So sorry about the insurance.  Not checking bags is a really good idea at this point - it'll give you a bit more flexibility.

Credit card coverage also requires that cancellation be for a covered reason. It is likely to have the same provisions and exclusions as  any other travel insurance.

[sassycruiser]

What did you decide to do? 

[sunshine4me2]

1 hour ago, sassycruiser said:

What did you decide to do? 

Checked in with SWA for our booked flight. Currently, website shows flight is scheduled to depart.  Have repacked our clothes into smaller carry on’s.  If we don’t get on the 10:40, then we’ll try for stand-by on other  SWA MCO flights.  Our last chance would be a 5 am direct flite on SWA Friday, if that doesn’t work, then to everyone on the Prima for NYE “have a great time”!  Will live vicariously thru their postings on CC.

Again, thanks to all fellow CC members for all the helpful suggestions.

[scooter6139]

Read an article that said SouthWest Airlines has cancelled over 11k flight in the last 6-7 days, which is 90% of all cancelations.

 

Definitely would not be flying with them at this time.

[Laszlo]

28 minutes ago, sunshine4me2 said:

Checked in with SWA for our booked flight. Currently, website shows flight is scheduled to depart.  Have repacked our clothes into smaller carry on’s.  If we don’t get on the 10:40, then we’ll try for stand-by on other  SWA MCO flights.  Our last chance would be a 5 am direct flite on SWA Friday, if that doesn’t work, then to everyone on the Prima for NYE “have a great time”!  Will live vicariously thru their postings on CC.

Again, thanks to all fellow CC members for all the helpful suggestions.

Hopefully it will all work out!!!

[AwesomO]

AA and United has placed price caps on flights to/from some of the impacted cities. might be worth it to check prices again. I generally love SW, but I wouldn't fly them this week if I really, really needed to get somewhere.

[sunshine4me2]

7 minutes ago, AwesomO said:

AA and United has placed price caps on flights to/from some of the impacted cities. might be worth it to check prices again. I generally love SW, but I wouldn't fly them this week if I really, really needed to get somewhere.

Just checked both AA and United. Nothing available till.  Thanks for suggestion.

[zqvol]

18 minutes ago, sunshine4me2 said:

Just checked both AA and United. Nothing available till.  Thanks for suggestion.

Don’t forget to check other FL cities including Tampa, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, you don’t have to fly into MCO 

[purpleally]

On 12/27/2022 at 10:19 AM, sunshine4me2 said:

We r booked on Prima NYE cruise this Friday the 30th.

We booked our flights on SWA from Chicago to Orlando, arrival on Thursday, 29th.

Southwest now cancelling flights today and tomorrow, no word yet on Thursday’s.

 

Flights on all other carriers are sold out, or over $1000 per seat, one way, even looked at car rental, one way, that’s gone too.  Have 3rd party cruise insurance thru Trawick, hoping I don’t have to use it.

 

Anyone else out there in panic mode?

 

Florida is driveable from Chicago 

[mking8288]

1 hour ago, purpleally said:

Florida is driveable from Chicago 

Sure, that's 2 days worth of driving ... Are you nearby, available and offering to give them a ride 😉 see post #5  -  "Given our ages, 73 & 77, 1200 miles to Port,  and car rentals one way, nonexistent, driving almost not an option.  I even checked flights from Indy to MCO, and that was not promising either."

 

DOT said they will hold the airline accountable for the meltdown.  SouthWest CEO said to keep all receipts for ...  Only planning to staff and fly about 1/3 of their scheduled flights this week, at best.

Edited December 28, 2022 by mking8288

[BirdTravels]

5 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

DOT said they will hold the airline accountable for the meltdown.  SouthWest CEO said to keep all receipts for ...  

SWA will hide behind weather cancellations for most of the disruption. And they are not liable for any delays/cancellations due to weather. 

[kitkat343]

3 hours ago, sunshine4me2 said:

Checked in with SWA for our booked flight. Currently, website shows flight is scheduled to depart.  Have repacked our clothes into smaller carry on’s.  If we don’t get on the 10:40, then we’ll try for stand-by on other  SWA MCO flights.  Our last chance would be a 5 am direct flite on SWA Friday, if that doesn’t work, then to everyone on the Prima for NYE “have a great time”!  Will live vicariously thru their postings on CC.

Again, thanks to all fellow CC members for all the helpful suggestions.

Good luck and keep us posted!  We are all rooting for you!  The carry ons are a good plan.

Edited December 28, 2022 by kitkat343

[zqvol]

22 hours ago, NCMtnBoys said:

I second checking other Florida airports - Jacksonville, Tampa, Ft Lauderdale, Miami... all served by major carriers other than Southwest. From any of those, you could rent a car for an easy drive to Orlando. 

 

We had a cancellation of the second leg of our flights Christmas day on Delta and despite an online search of six other departure airports in our region, all flights were full so we didn't get to take our trip. We learned of our cancellation at 11:00pm the night before our 7:00am first leg. I tried calling then too, and the wait was more than 5 hours (I've seen other say at some point they had a recorded message of a wait time of 17 hours). Thankfully we never took our first flight leg so we weren't stranded somewhere else. Lots and lots of baggage issues right now too.

 

I hope it all works out for you, I know it would be really disappointing to miss a cruise. Our next cruise is January 21st from Miami and we're flying on the 20th. Not Southwest, but issues can happen at all airlines, unfortunately.

Remember that OP would have to drive to Port Canaveral, not Orlando. 

[scooter6139]

1 hour ago, BirdTravels said:

SWA will hide behind weather cancellations for most of the disruption. And they are not liable for any delays/cancellations due to weather. 

That might work if if was affecting all other carriers the same way.  It's not.  Not even close.

[kitkat343]

1 hour ago, scooter6139 said:

That might work if if was affecting all other carriers the same way.  It's not.  Not even close.

And I don't think the DOT will let them get away with it this time.  

[Niffernay]

On 12/27/2022 at 3:39 PM, sunshine4me2 said:

Hoping for the best!  But you know what I'm blessed that we both are healthy enough to travel at our ages, even if we don't get to go!  Life could be worse🙂

Hoping for the best for you!!!!!! 

[odie1024]

Good luck, way too stressful for me, I would have been looking at a train or bus to get me there.

 

[mking8288]

Good luck to OP, perhaps they are on a Greyhound at this moment making their way down to the Sunshine State.  SWA could not and will maybe, possibly masked some of the cancellations last week on weather; but, not with the subsequent & massive system-wide cancellations and delays, essentially a total meltdown.  Worse than and comparable to what B6 (JetBlue) went thru in the winter of (Feb.) 2007, triggered by aircraft de-icing problems associated with a major winter storm/blizzard in the Northeast.  

 

SWA's failure is partially associated with crew scheduling & computer networking systems, and point-to-point operations vs. other carrier's hub operations.   

 

Looking at today's data - DL, AA, UA essentially ran 99%+ or better with no cancellations.  JetBlue cancelled 3% and Spirit cancelled 4% of its scheduled flights.  SWA cancelled 61% (sixty-one percent) of its US flights today, that's 2,509 flights cancelled out of 2,890 total US flights; with another 8% delayed (346 flights for SWA).  There is simply no way that SWA can blame it on weather and evade DOT's oversight (which has been at arm's length from deregulations ...) 

 

To what extent will SWA refund and make good on its promise, remains unseen, beyond the price of the purchased airfares - extra compensations and/or reimbursement for missed cruises, hotels/lodging and food, ground transportation, etc. is going to be a tough one. 

[dbrown84]

praying for OP.  According to flightaware, SW completed 8 out of 9 flights from Chicago to Orlando yesterday and only 1 out of 8 flights have been cancelled for today.  There has already been one flight completed this morning.

[DCGuy64]

19 hours ago, sunshine4me2 said:

Checked in with SWA for our booked flight. Currently, website shows flight is scheduled to depart.  Have repacked our clothes into smaller carry on’s.  If we don’t get on the 10:40, then we’ll try for stand-by on other  SWA MCO flights.  Our last chance would be a 5 am direct flite on SWA Friday, if that doesn’t work, then to everyone on the Prima for NYE “have a great time”!  Will live vicariously thru their postings on CC.

Again, thanks to all fellow CC members for all the helpful suggestions.

Are you on flight 1341? That one flies from Midway to Orlando at 10:40. So far, all looks good for that one, the inbound flight from Denver is still operating and, according to Flightaware, your flight is still on schedule. Keeping fingers crossed for you and your NYE cruise!