Son and DIL were here in MD over Xmas and were supposed to fly to Buffalo to spend time with her mother today. Of course the flight was cancelled, and United can’t rebook then until Thursday the 29th. The Buffalo airport isn’t even supposed to reopen until tomorrow afternoon. So her Mom, who lives alone, won’t see them til Thursday at the earliest, and only for a couple if days, as they’ll need to leave right after new years. Fortunately, she has power and food, but can’t leave her house.
Our other son and his fiancée can’t get a flight out of Philadelphia to New Orleans, even though neither were directly impacted by the storm and Southwest also says they can’t get them on a flight until Thursday. They were able to find a flight in Wednesday on another airline. I told them Southwest is required to give them a refund in cash, even if they offer a later rebooking. I also suggested that they not cancel the rescheduled Southwest flight until they knew that their Wednesday flight was actually going to take off.
I have the feeling there are a lot of people stuck wherever they happen to be until later in the week as the airlines reposition planes and try try to rebook people who missed their flights.
My brother is flying out of Denver to Florida on SW tomorrow morning. So far, not cancelled. His friend’s flight from New Orleans was cancelled so friend is driving.
D’s BIL and girlfriend couldn’t get out of Florida on Sat night, on SW, and they couldn’t get her until either late today or tomorrow, so just cancelled the whole trip. They were all supposed to go skiing for 3 days, had purchased the ski tickets, rented skis, and the parents paid a fortune for the AirB&B. They can get credit for the ski rental and use the tickets during this season, but may not have the time off work in Feb, and of course have no place to stay (without paying) for a weekend.
SW just cancelled my D’s flight for her vacation. They can’t get her there until the day before she’s supposed to come back. Customer service just rings busy. No other flights on other airlines even slightly in the realm of affordable.
My dil lost her dad this year. Her mom was going to travel along the Ohio Turnpike on Saturday to the kids but thankfully turned around before she got on the turnpike. It was closed for 30 miles. She thought the roads weren’t good.
She spent Christmas alone but they are going to celebrate this upcoming weekend.
My DIL’s sister has already received a text this morning that her SWA flight home on Thursday has been cancelled. I guess she is lucky she found out in advance as she is traveling with a 3 year old, and that she is at her parents house so can stay as long as needed. Still, what a mess! How long will it take to get planes and crew back on schedule? This flight was from Alabama to California, so not in the path of the storm.
We have a flight scheduled on SW from Baltimore to Nashville on Friday. When I look on the SW site, all flights on that route Friday are “unavailable.” I wonder if ours is going to get canceled. Fortunately we’re considering driving, because the airlines are such a mess right now. I’m really glad we have that option.
FWIW, I’d plan on driving. D read me an article that said it won’t be until after 1/1 that they are operating more normally.
And yes, she’s lucky she found out in advance. My D only realized her flight was cancelled when a friend told her to check.
Supposedly the SW staff scheduling system crashed so they couldn’t get crews where they needed to be. Seems like an awfully long time to not recover from something like that though…
“Unavailable” just means the flights are all full. There will be no margin for error if any flights do get cancelled. I’m beginning to worry about my kid getting home and they don’t fly until the 1st,
I know what it “normally” means, but it’s not normal for every single flight to be unavailable (there are probably 12 or more flights a day).They are unavailable on every single flight, from Tues - Friday.
Just editing to say I guess it is considered normal at this time of year.
In the good news on SW front, I took my brother to the airport at 4 am and his (non-stop) flight from Denver to Orlando at 5:10 am left on time and he even checked a bag. He’s then flying on Sat morning to Cabo and staying there for a week, so hopes everything will be better by his return on Jan 8.
I’m not flying until Feb 6 so hope everything will be better by then. Daughter’s BIL and his girlfriend just cancelled their whole trip, which I think was for the best. They hope they can reschedule for just a long weekend instead of a whole week in February.
I read the SW is not going to cover hotels and meals. Certainly worth asking, but it would cost them millions to cover it all. Maybe they’ll award mileage to people who ask nicely.
My mom finally got out of Tulsa! She rebooked herself on an American flight since her Southwest flights kept getting canceled. In the air now to Charlotte, then on to Boston.
For the record, she rescheduled her own 12/22 flight to 12/25 to avoid the weather. 12/25 flight was canceled by Southwest and she was rebooked to 12/26. 12/26 flight was canceled, and she was rebooked to 12/29. This morning, she woke up to a notice that her 12/29 flights were also canceled. She was very glad she decided to just rebook herself on American.
Fingers crossed she will be home with us this evening finally!
@1214mom That’s actually typical this time of year. I was checking last minute flights last year before Christmas for my D’s fiancé. He was on deployment and unsure exactly when he was getting back. A week beforehand, I was helping D try to find flights for him, and there were several days where all flights were “unavailable” and this was at a time when there were no weather issues. But it was the holidays, so all flights were full.
Last week, when I was worried D’s flight was going to get canceled due to weather issues, I was looking at alternative flights on SW just in case (she was flying on Alaska). I was checking 12-24 thru 12/26 and there was zero availability on Southwest to her destination. Fortunately her flight was not canceled so I didn’t have to worry.
I’ve seen post after post after post of people delayed on SW. One friend’s son has been trying to get to California from Ohio since Monday with nothing in site through Friday.
Take that back there was one flight choice, not on SW - $1300 one way.
The problem SW has now is that all the flights for this week were already full, so they can’t squeeze the people on who are still trying to get back for the holidays while the people who did get out last week are now trying to get back.
D’s inlaws who totally cancelled freed up two seats from Denver to Jax on Sunday!
There was a newscaster on the 4 am program today who said he was in Indianapolis over the weekend and they said he wouldn’t get back until 12/29. He rented a car and drove.
What I don’t understand are the people who never started their trips still trying to get out of their home airports. STAY HOME! Go at a different time. There was one woman in Dallas-Love field still trying to get to California to meet up with friends and has been doing that for 3 days. Go home. Admit defeat.
