RE: the luggage could be a variety of different reasons for the luggage. A few years ago, a storm closed DFW when I was trying to get back to NewMexico from CT. I flew into Philadelphia on a small local flight and found out I couldn’t go any farther and wouldn’t be able to fly out for 1-3 days. I asked if I could return to my airport of origin so I could stay with my daughter until I could get all the way home, but was told if I did, the airline wouldn’t honor the rest of my reservation. Ultimately I ended up at a smaller airport in VA where my connecting flight was cancelled three times. And my luggage was nowhere to be found. Finally got home very, very, very late the next day/early the day after on another airline via a totally different route and my luggage was at final destination in a big pile just like in the photo from Denver.
The funniest part was that I ran into a family I had seen in the Philadelphia airport who were also heading back to my hometown. They had managed to get on a flight to DFW with the original airline the next morning, but then got stranded in the DFW airport and ended up renting a car to drive 10 hours home. They were at the airport trying to find their luggage which had flown on without them.
As I reported up-thread, earlier this week every SW flight from BWI to Nashville on Friday (and other days around then) was “unavailable” earlier this week.
Now just a about every flight from BWI to Nashville is showing availability tomorrow.
I’m amazed our nephew and his mother made their SWA flight on 12/26 from Dallas to NYC with no problem whatsoever. It even left on time and arrived a little early to NYC.
D1’s Delta flight on 12/27 from Tampa to Raleigh also had zero problems.
An online friend of mine is a flight attendant for Southwest. I asked how she had been affected. She said she usually takes off this time of year, but had volunteered to cover a route for a friend on December 23. It didn’t go well. She didn’t get home until December 27! She is hoping that Southwest will figure out their issues and come out of this a better company.
I had plenty of complaints about sub-45-degree days in Tampa, but we were the most fortunate Southwest customers in the country, it seems. Our nonstop flights to and from Las Vegas on the 24th and the 31st went off without a hitch – just a 40 minute delay on our return. And thanks to fellow passengers who made other travel arrangements, there were 30 empty middle seats on the way back, so we were even more comfortable than we expected.
SWA agreed to refund the cost of the tickets we chose not to use right before and after NYs, including the early bird seat assignment fees. Our flights did take off, but we weren’t at all confident they would, so we drove to/from our destination.