Travelers nervous, frustrated amid SWA cancelations & 'non-existent' communication
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) — Frustration and anxiety are just some of the emotions from thousands of Southwest passengers as many are still stuck trying to get home or to see loved ones over the holidays.
About a third of the Dallas-based airline's flights took off Tuesday as they tried to recover.
Inside Dallas Love Field, where more than 95% of the flights coming in and out are from Southwest, passengers are stressed out.
"This is a breakdown of epic proportions that I've never seen before," said Christina Draper, who was trying to fly to Salt Lake City to see family members. "The flight was delayed, delayed, delayed and then finally canceled, so we went home but of course they wouldn't pull our luggage. We've been waiting for any kind of communication [and] of course there is none."
Other passengers got to Love Field, but now have to find other ways to get home.
"We should have been home yesterday and we should have had a flight home today but we're going to get a car and make our way back," said customer Jakob Nelp, who is trying to get back home to Tulsa.
The chaos is making passengers who just arrived for their flight nervous.
"Got kids in tow, we're afraid of losing our luggage, so we're just kind of hanging out and seeing what's settled," said passenger Jennifer Burghardt.
The communication, passengers said, is mostly non-existent.
"You can't get through their customer service even with the website, you go into the website, the website would say, 'Come back again, it's busy,'" said Nimfa Pana, who is trying to schedule flights for her children.
Tuesday evening, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan sent out a video message apologizing.
"I want everyone to know that we're doing everything we can to return to a normal operation and please also hear that I'm truly sorry," Jordan said.
In the video, Jordan explained Southwest needs to "double down" on their existing plans to upgrade systems for these circumstances and that they'll make things right for customers.
"We always take care of our customers and we will lean in and go above and beyond as they would expect us to."
It's a commitment U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said they need to follow through on.
"When you're in the situation and the airline is responsible, which is clearly the case right now, then you can get those kinds of vouchers for hotels, restaurants. But what I talked about with the Southwest CEO, is that a passenger shouldn't have to request that. They need to be proactively offering that. He pledged that they would," Buttigieg said.
Which would provide some consolation to these stressed-out flyers.
"I just hope that they'll be able to honor the rate that we originally confirmed with and right now it's up to $600 just to go back to California when it was originally $200," Pana added.
Jordan said they will continue to fly a reduced schedule until next week, most likely.
Anyone who would like to request a refund can do so here.
