Local news today said BNA (Nashville) had 2 flights each cancelled by American and Delta and 141 cancelled by SW. In discussions with S about flying to FL on SW in late February. Hope they have things worked out by then, but there could be worse things than being stuck with S’s family in FL for a few extra days.
I cannot vouch for the validity, but this was posted by a friend on FB, apparently written by a pilot:
"I don’t know what to say. Southwest Airlines has imploded. Their antiquated software system has completely fried. Planes are parked. Crews are stranded in the airports with the passengers, volunteering to take the passengers in the parked planes but the software won’t accept it. Phone lines are overwhelmed for both passenger and crews. I personally spent over two hours trying to get ahold of anyone in the company last night after midnight. A Captain and I did manage to get the one flight put together on Christmas night and got people home. Kudos to the ops agent and dispatcher for making it happen. We had to manually input a lot of the data and it took over an hour to coordinate with dispatch going back and forth running numbers.
We spent hours trying to get the company to answer and get us a hotel when we landed as they’re all sold out. We were only put in a call que for hours before hanging up. I found one hotel with 4 rooms and we bought our own rooms at 2:30am. I even paid for a Flight Attendants room. We literally have crews sleeping on the airport floors all over the country with nowhere to go. Crews have been calling to fly anyone, anywhere, but the company says the system needs a reset. They have effectively shut down the operations for the rest of year, running 1/3 of the flights so that they can let the computer find and locate the crews and aircraft. Gate agents are in tears. They’ve been yelled at, cussed at, slapped and spit on. Flight attendants have been taking a beating. The frontline employees have had little support or communication. Terminals are standing room only with people having been there for days. Pilot lounges are packed with pilots ready to fly and nowhere to go.
Embarrassing is an understatement. I’m going on my second of three days off, still stuck on the east coast and still expected to show up in the morning with no schedule. And I’m willing to fly all day if needed. Because that’s nothing compared to the passengers needing meds in bags that are lost and mothers traveling with kids, having been stuck for the same amount of days in the terminal. In 24 years, I’ve never seen anything like this. Heads need to roll! Rumors on media are floating that there is a lack of crews and pilots are staging sick calls. Absolutely not true at all. This is a computer system meltdown. Thousands of crew members are sitting in hotels and airports with nowhere to go. This airline has failed miserably.”
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I heard it was a major software glitch. What you posted seems to confirm that.
I hope they have it back and running by Feb as we’re flying then and I love Southwest. I’m glad I don’t own their stock now though and I really feel for all of those affected.
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ps I wonder if someone hacked their system - ransomware or something - and they’re not saying.
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I am hearing that SW problem is due to their antiquated software which couldn’t handle all the scheduling changes for both crews and passengers. The system got overwhelmed.
Now, I believe it is what the department of transportation should do to ensure all airlines have updated software by having minimum requirements and regular stress tests on those software.
I have worked at banking and utility. They regularly do stress tests on their software and have disaster recovery (DR) plan in place. DR usually has business continuity plan in case there is a complete software meltdown. I wonder what kind of oversight they had on SW’s contingency plan.
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We flew Delta yesterday to CA. Our original flight on Xmas was cancelled. The airport was an absolute zoo with long lines everywhere and so many people it was necessary to try to alternate walking by taking turns in single file to get to the security area. Thank heavens we weren’t checking any luggage. Not only was it a zoo, but there were few masks. The plane was packed and they were offering $1500 to give up a seat. So we are in SF now, the weather is dreary (rainy and cool, but warmer than where we were) and one of the grandkids is sick with a stomach bug, fever and rash. And it’s 5 am and we’ve been awake for 2 hours 
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This is exactly why I believe in strong government oversight. Maybe some significant improvements will come out of this - fingers crossed.
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Lol. The government systems are even more antiquated than the airlines 
I always laughed when anyone asked a gate agent to make a change or check on something. The agent would type for minutes throng to make the change. With todays tech that’s a shame.
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Government doesn’t need to have state of the art software, they just need to provide oversight to require airlines to show evidence that they have proper DR in place, which should include technology, people and process. That’s what banking regulators do. We have probably the most mature data governance in place because the regulators require us to show evidence that we have good controls on data we use to do reporting on. They would shut us down if we couldn’t provide the evidence.
The Transportation Department can do the same with the airlines. Cease and decease message would get their attention really fast. Warnings and fines are not effective enough.
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We have a friend whose daughter works for a travel agency (yes those are still around, they do a lot of corporate travel) and it was chaos. Lots of their customers had their flights cancelled. One client and his wife were flying to San Diego to catch a cruise, their Southwest flight was cancelled, so they decided to drive down instead. The agency tried to find them flights on other airlines, but most flights had only 1 seat left or had nothing available.
SWA will now update their systems not due to government oversight but because of all the business they will loose if they don’t. Not sure how the DOT can fix the airlines when it cannot fix the ATC system that they own.
Regulator, regulate thyself
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Does anyone happen to know if SW will give back our early bird access $$s if we cancel flights this week/early next week? We are thinking driving seems like a better option at this point.
Does anyone know if they are likely to continue canceling flights on Friday?
Nope.
“Is EarlyBird Check-In refundable? EarlyBird Check-In purchases are non-refundable . Customers who cancel their flight will forfeit the previously purchased EarlyBird Check-In option for that particular flight.”
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If the flight is cancelled they will refund early bird fee, but if you cancel I do not think you will get it back. Worth asking. I read that airlines are refunding the ticket prices and other fees (luggage, seat selection) but the flight has to be cancelled.
will they keep cancelling? Most likely some flights will still be cancelled well into next week, but will your flight be one of them? Who knows.
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Thanks. I’m HOPING they will agree to credit us back the fees, given the mess they’ve made this week.
ETA - After 2ish hours on hold, we were told we cannot get our early-bird feeds back if we cancel, and to speak to a supervisor she has to sent a note and they will call us back in 3-4 days.
I am not happy, and will wait until Friday to see if our flight actually goes.
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Baggage claim for SW in denver. This is one carousel, and I think they have about 12
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So where are the people who own these pieces of luggage? Didn’t make connecting flights? Or checked and flights didn’t take off? I’m stumped!
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Comments on the article in the local paper about continuing airline meltdown we’re not very SW friendly. One reader asked, “Is Musk running Southwest, too?” 
What a nightmare. 
Don’t know. They said on the news that luggage would be sent to the destination as tagged and then the people would have to request it back, so if your luggage went to Denver but you didn’t, you have to request it back.
Don’t know if this is luggage that came in on planes coming to Denver that was never claimed or luggage that was off loaded from flights that never took off.
Daughter’s BF flew into Denver on 12/24 at 6 pm and checked a bag on United. No problem at all but United is on the other side of the airport in Denver. So many people on SW check 2 bags because it is ‘free’. There are also skis and other oversized luggage. I’m thinking they’ll have to take all this luggage to a hanger and just start sorting from there.