Post all SW questions concerns, etc. here...

[mom2rtk]

My nonstop home from Orlando in January had 99 open seats. We were shocked and thrilled. Most of our flights are always full. This was also the last flight of the night.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My nonstop home from Orlando in January had 99 open seats. We were shocked and thrilled. Most of our flights are always full. This was also the last flight of the night.

that doesn't surprise me given Omicron and how it was in January.

 

[cmarsh31]

Oh no!! Is there anyway to put a chaperone or two with some of the groups of kids? Seems crazy! As a former high school and college band kid, they are the best and will rise to the occasion and show their leadership skills. Or they will break out the instruments in the airport and put on a performance

At the moment, that would be a "name change" on the tickets, which is not allowed! There's absolutely no way our liability for our school would allow kids under 18 to fly or travel without a chaperone, and the parents will 100% freak out. We have a couple work-arounds, but literally involve us paying more money than our already expensive flights... and having essentially a shuttle bus running from MCO to our resort! With no DME, we have to pay for a charter bus to transport. Now instead of one, we need three, both days! They have made it completely clear that there's no availability for us and flights are subject to change. They offered to change the flights... but it's Spring Break/Easter, you're right, there's no actual flights. Plus, of course, we have a large block of rooms reserved at Disney - and a marching day that's set in stone by Disney. All of which were booked AFTER we secured our flights. Next they offered another airport... how we get to the nearest airport 3 hours away? Nope, no solution for that. Even Disney tries to keep groups/families together in hotels. SW doesn't even try to keep groups all booked together, through their GROUP service, on the same flights.

 

[KayW]

At the moment, that would be a "name change" on the tickets, which is not allowed! There's absolutely no way our liability for our school would allow kids under 18 to fly or travel without a chaperone, and the parents will 100% freak out. We have a couple work-arounds, but literally involve us paying more money than our already expensive flights... and having essentially a shuttle bus running from MCO to our resort! With no DME, we have to pay for a charter bus to transport. Now instead of one, we need three, both days! They have made it completely clear that there's no availability for us and flights are subject to change. They offered to change the flights... but it's Spring Break/Easter, you're right, there's no actual flights. Plus, of course, we have a large block of rooms reserved at Disney - and a marching day that's set in stone by Disney. All of which were booked AFTER we secured our flights. Next they offered another airport... how we get to the nearest airport 3 hours away? Nope, no solution for that. Even Disney tries to keep groups/families together in hotels. SW doesn't even try to keep groups all booked together, through their GROUP service, on the same flights.

That's horrible! The school may need to weigh in in some way.

 

[boothbay]

So annoyed with Southwest at the moment. I just got the dreaded email that our flight was changed. Instead of leaving at 12:30 and arriving at 3:30pm (which was later than I wanted but would be non-stop) we got bumped to a flight leaving at 3:30 and arriving at 6:30pm.
I went to look to see what was available instead and the other non-stop of the day is, wait for it, 12:30 arriving at 3:30. So they added another 12:30 flight at some point and bumped ours to 3:30. Not cool! (And the new 12:30 flight of course sold out)
Now trying to decide if it’s worth it to switch to a flight that leaves at 5:30am and connects through BWI but gets us there by noon. Frustrating how many fewer flights there are these days.

 

[mickeyfino]

So annoyed with Southwest at the moment. I just got the dreaded email that our flight was changed. Instead of leaving at 12:30 and arriving at 3:30pm (which was later than I wanted but would be non-stop) we got bumped to a flight leaving at 3:30 and arriving at 6:30pm.
I went to look to see what was available instead and the other non-stop of the day is, wait for it, 12:30 arriving at 3:30. So they added another 12:30 flight at some point and bumped ours to 3:30. Not cool! (And the new 12:30 flight of course sold out)
Now trying to decide if it’s worth it to switch to a flight that leaves at 5:30am and connects through BWI but gets us there by noon. Frustrating how many fewer flights there are these days.

Whoa, that is insane! It's frustrating enough with all these flight cancellations and very little available flights to reschedule to, but wow, for them to add a new - and now sold out - flight that is the same time as your original flight? Unreal.

 

[boothbay]

I also just read about the marching band situation - what the heck? You need some supervisor to break some rules and do “name change” and reassign some adults to each plane!

 

[Gitelfor]

New travel advisory, due to forecasted weather conditions;

Friday, February 18

• Buffalo/Niagara, NY (BUF)
• Cleveland, OH (CLE)
• Indianapolis, IN (IND)
• Rochester, NY (ROC)
• Syracuse, NY (SYR)

 

[Cruzin’Sisters]

Whoa, that is insane! It's frustrating enough with all these flight cancellations and very little available flights to reschedule to, but wow, for them to add a new - and now sold out - flight that is the same time as your original flight? Unreal.

You guys should check flights now. I was literally booking a flight for April. As I was toggling between a Thursday and Friday to compare prices (they were both sky high), they disappeared. I logged out and came back…all new flight times and decent prices in comparison. I don’t know if it was all destinations.

 

[disneygal55]

So annoyed with Southwest at the moment. I just got the dreaded email that our flight was changed. Instead of leaving at 12:30 and arriving at 3:30pm (which was later than I wanted but would be non-stop) we got bumped to a flight leaving at 3:30 and arriving at 6:30pm.
I went to look to see what was available instead and the other non-stop of the day is, wait for it, 12:30 arriving at 3:30. So they added another 12:30 flight at some point and bumped ours to 3:30. Not cool! (And the new 12:30 flight of course sold out)
Now trying to decide if it’s worth it to switch to a flight that leaves at 5:30am and connects through BWI but gets us there by noon. Frustrating how many fewer flights there are these days.

My son let me know at 10:15 pm last night that he got an email from SW saying that our non stop flight 6AM-`9AM was changed to leaving at 5PM arriving at 10:30! I got the email around 15 minutes later. Not happy at all.
We were able to change it to a non stop 12noon-3PM this morning but still losing a big part of our WDW day.

 

[Rachel GB]

My son let me know at 10:15 pm last night that he got an email from SW saying that our non stop flight 6AM-`9AM was changed to leaving at 5PM arriving at 10:30! I got the email around 15 minutes later. Not happy at all.
We were able to change it to a non stop 12noon-3PM this morning but still losing a big part of our WDW day.

Mine went from a 6:45 am nonstop to a connecting flight that lands at midnight with all nonstop sold out! Fingers crossed this turns out for all of us.
And they just changed my return to a rough flight! Maybe this trip is not meant to be.

 

[Gitelfor]

Received notification of early a.m. nonstop cancellation which Southwest changed to an itinerary with layover at BWI. ETA is about 12 hours later than original flight, in the wee hours of the morning. There are no acceptable options for the original travel date. The system is supposed to allow changes within 14 days, either way, but will not allow moving date later than the return date of this round trip booking, as the return flight was not affected and is not eligible for change. Unfortunately, this was the one time where a round trip was booked, instead of two one-ways! ☹

 

[Rachel GB]

Received notification of early a.m. nonstop cancellation which Southwest changed to an itinerary with layover at BWI. ETA is about 12 hours later than original flight, in the wee hours of the morning. There are no acceptable options for the original travel date. The system is supposed to allow changes within 14 days, either way, but will not allow moving date later than the return date of this round trip booking, as the return flight was not affected and is not eligible for change. Unfortunately, this was the one time where a round trip was booked, instead of two one-ways! ☹

Our return flight was just changed on us (to something awful) 24 hours after departure was changed to something awful. So you may still be able to change both!

 

[Grankm21]

What is going on with SW? They cancelled our mid April direct flights as well. The remaining flight options are horrible. Not one direct option. I’m even checking two other nearby airports…nothing. I would have thought that they’d be adding options to FL over Spring Break, not eliminating them.

Since July 2021 we’ve had 6 out of 8 SW flights cancelled and rebooked by SW.

 

[BillFromCT]

And they've crept into May. Got an email about an an hour and a half ago. Both the 5/01 and 5/06 flights between PVD-MCO have changed. They each move forward by a few hours. A 10:45am departure instead of 5:30am. A 10:10pm MCO departure instead of 6:55pm. They both stayed direct, and got a $49.01 credit for the flight going down. The coming back flight gave the change for free option.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It's so strange that April is being so affected like this. I know for March our airport was affected by flight cancellations by SWA and American, hadn't seen about April yet.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Since July 2021 we’ve had 6 out of 8 SW flights cancelled and rebooked by SW.

And see we haven't. Although we've only been to Vegas. We flew in March 2021, husband flew to Vegas in October 2021 (for work), we flew to Vegas in December and the next weekend husband flew back to Vegas (for work). No flight changes. I will keep a big eye out though for our May Orlando trip, normally I don't even worry about this but dang sure seems like might have to.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Well spoke too soon literally 5 mins ago got an e-mail our May 4th flight down to Orlando was 5:20am and is now 5:10am. Original arrival 9am, new arrival 8:55am. It's not updated on the account though.

I forget does the change flight option to get points back (because the flight is now cheaper) keep the EBCI on there?

 

[boothbay]

We ended up moving our outbound flight to a connecting flight leaving at 5:30am which will be painful but we live very close to our regional airport so we'll. manage. Good news is we should get to the parks by midday and we'll plan for an early dinner and bed with little expectations beyond that for day 1.

Of course as I'm puttering around tonight I get another email from SW saying that our return flight has been changed. Before I opened the message I wagered a bet with my husband as to which direction our flight would change (originally it was set to leave MCO at 9:30am). I was pleasantly surprised it was only moved back by an hour to 10:30am.

I do find it strange that the week of our state's spring vacation the are cutting flights left and right. I would think you could sell lots of seats to Orlando during that time!

 

[Gitelfor]

If you think your new flight arrangements are bad, someone was booked to fly BUF-PHL and had his flight changed to BUF-MCO-PHL (a ten hour trip, with a 5 hour layover at MCO).