A little stressed about flights

[LaVon]

Okay we booked flights via Southwest for oct back in may.. Now all of a sudden the last 2 days my flights have been changed twice.. I keep reading how flakey Spirit and frontier is and how they cancel when you're at the gate without a care in the world but does Southwest do this? We went from leaving at 12 to leaving at 10:40 going to Disneyland (sac to long beach) now they changed our coming home flight.. I dont fly much and it will be the first time I fly with kids.. Is this normal? (I know I'm worrying over nothing major but if it was just me it's not a big deal but adding kids makes it stressful)

 

[kristensideaoffun]

This is the current normal no matter what airline you fly with. Airlines are experiencing staff shortages which are causing more last minute changes than usual. Airlines are also changing flights to consolidate as many passengers as possible onto as few of flights as possible in order to save money and hopefully avoid those staff shortage issues. Airlines are also canceling nonstop flights and rebooking people onto flights with layovers. Just keep an eye on your flights. The great thing about Southwest is I have found them to be very easy to work with when they make changes on their end. You can change to a better flight and even fly in or out of a different airport in the region at no cost.

 

[wishing4PA]

I don't know anything about Southwest, but 3/4 of our Delta flights got changed, though not by over an hour like yours. I think it happens to all airlines even during regular times, but is happening more now as so much has been uncertain and travel patterns have changed quite a bit.

 

[Twinkletoesjohnson]

Okay we booked flights via Southwest for oct back in may.. Now all of a sudden the last 2 days my flights have been changed twice.. I keep reading how flakey Spirit and frontier is and how they cancel when you're at the gate without a care in the world but does Southwest do this? We went from leaving at 12 to leaving at 10:40 going to Disneyland (sac to long beach) now they changed our coming home flight.. I dont fly much and it will be the first time I fly with kids.. Is this normal? (I know I'm worrying over nothing major but if it was just me it's not a big deal but adding kids makes it stressful)

I don’t think it’s normal, but it seems to be happening quite a bit and I’m assuming it’s Covid-related adjustments as people start resuming travel. We’ve had the same thing happen to us for our august trip AND our September trip. They’ve switched our flights three times. Very frustrating.

For what it’s worth, United did the same to us for our Nashville trip in October. except worse, they actually cancelled our non-stop flight and switched us to a layover one.

 

[ddwlms]

SW changed our last flights out of Sacramento. What they didn't tell us is that we could change the flight they moved us to, to any flight in and out of the LA area for free. So, when they changed the time of our flights to Long Beach, we went into SW online and changed the flight they gave us to a flight to John Wayne that had a better time then what they gave us. --I'd rather fly to John Wayne anyways, but when I booked, those flights cost about 2X as much as the flights to Long Beach.

I think you have 24 hours to make this change if you want to.

 

[JWelch62]

I think you have 24 hours to make this change if you want to.

SWA rescheduled a September flight of mine on 7/18. I just rescheduled yesterday. I don't think there's a 24 hour limit. Or at least they are being very accommodating right now.

 

[kappyfamily]

I fly quite a bit and did in 2020 as well. It's not the normal for SW or Alaska to do this, but it is the "normal" for right now. Always check to see if there are better options for the route you want to take, they dont always put you on the best. You have the right to change what they have re booked you on if it doesnt work at no cost to you. My flight to SNA was changed by Alaska and they put me on the latest flight in. I called and let them know that wouldnt work and I needed the earliest possible flight in, which ended up being better then what I originally booked. They made the switch no problem. Good luck!

****There is no "24 hour" rule if they make the changes. You just can't hit the "accept changes" button. Once you do that you have agreed to whatever flight you are put on. Again if you dont like the flight, check to see if there is anything better on that airline, even a different day or airport, and ask them to make the change (free).

 

[LaVon]

I fly quite a bit and did in 2020 as well. It's not the normal for SW or Alaska to do this, but it is the "normal" for right now. Always check to see if there are better options for the route you want to take, they dont always put you on the best. You have the right to change what they have re booked you on if it doesnt work at no cost to you. My flight to SNA was changed by Alaska and they put me on the latest flight in. I called and let them know that wouldnt work and I needed the earliest possible flight in, which ended up being better then what I originally booked. They made the switch no problem. Good luck!

****There is no "24 hour" rule if they make the changes. You just can't hit the "accept changes" button. Once you do that you have agreed to whatever flight you are put on. Again if you dont like the flight, check to see if there is anything better on that airline, even a different day or airport, and ask them to make the change (free).

A different day isn't an option sadly.. im just worried about it being canceled last min.. so far the times haven't been to bad

 

[Dmto4]

We had a schedule change on Southwest last week. Originally we were flying into Long Beach. They just changed us tonight to a nonstop flight that goes into John Wayne (SNA) no questions asked. I am actually really impressed with their customer service. Hope you can work something out.

 

[kappyfamily]

A different day isn't an option sadly.. im just worried about it being canceled last min.. so far the times haven't been to bad

ok, well fingers crossed for you!

 

[kappyfamily]

We had a schedule change on Southwest last week. Originally we were flying into Long Beach. They just changed us tonight to a nonstop flight that goes into John Wayne (SNA) no questions asked. I am actually really impressed with their customer service. Hope you can work something out.

Southwest and Alaska are amazing that way!

 

[lalasmama]

We flew SW last month to/from PDX/MCO (Portland to Orlando). Our family now refers to it as "The Great SW Cluster of June 2021." Despite describing it as a "cluster", I still willingly booked additional SW flights, so clearly it was bad, but not BAD.

When we booked, the trip each way had 1 lay-over with plane change. Then, a few weeks before our departure, they added another stop (but not another plane change). PDX - DEN - MCO became PDX- DEN - OKC - MCO. Annoying? Definitely. End of the world? No. But still annoying It got us into town about 90 minutes later than we had originally planned.

The way home was started as MCO - DEN - PDX. Then they added a stop at OHR a few weeks ahead of time. No biggy; again, no additional plane change. But then when we got to OHR, they basically said, "Guess what?! Everyone's getting off here! This flight is CANCELLED!" And there began our "adventure." First, they didn't tell us *why* the flight was cancelled, just very vague. Turns out there was bad weather in Denver, some sort of computer system issue, and (most importantly and most frustratingly) the pilots had hit their flight time limit for the day. (Seriously, how could they have not known this ahead of time??) Then it took them an hour to get us rescheduled. Then the arriving plane was late, and they were attempting to board 3 separate flights from the same gate; it was under construction, and standing room only, for 3 flights of ~145 people each. Lots of confusion there! Then they sent us to PHX, where we were delayed (again!). Of course, all this happened at inopportune times, so our dining options at OHR were snack carts, and when we got to PHX at like 9:00pm, nearly everything was closed as well. Originally, we had planned to get in to PDX (final destination) at 8:15pm. Hub's 78-year-old mom was going to pick us up, and is usually in bed by 9pm, so she was already staying up a bit later for us. By the time we actually got to PDX, it was after midnight. Poor lady was up to nearly 2am. Ugh!

My old flight pattern from PDX to LGB (about 20 miles from Disneyland), was PDX - OAK or SJC - LGB. Now, it's PDX - LAS - LGB, adding a chunk of additional time. I used to be able to do a "quick" day trip to Disneyland (it was about 25 hours from bed-to-bed). Now, I have to plan actual flight days, because I can't count on SW to be on time to get me to or from So Cal. Ugh.

All this considered, I've learned to just not look much at the emails from SW, ha! I double check that it's not something super-major (different airports, or hours different), and then only look at it otherwise like 48 hours ahead of time to get the updated times. Everything I've heard is that it's not SW-specific, but it's definitely gone downhill with SW since pre-pandemic.

 

[sarajoy]

A different day isn't an option sadly.. im just worried about it being canceled last min.. so far the times haven't been to bad

I wouldn’t worry about SW cancelling the flight last minute. I haven’t seen that happen like it does with some of the other budget airlines.

 

[Congo Queen]

Yes I can testify as well. I've taken two trips with SW in July (KONA & LAS) and have one booked for Aug (PDX) and another for Sept (SNA). ALL of them have had changes to the original outbound and inbound flights since my original booking. In some cases it has been a minor inconvenience and a shift of only an hour or so. In other cases, it has been significant time shift and left with no good choices as alternates. SW seems to have really reduced direct flights and turned many 1 stop flights into 2 stop flights. I am going to look at other airlines when I book in the future to see if it is any better.

 

[Hyphen677]

I wouldn’t worry about SW cancelling the flight last minute. I haven’t seen that happen like it does with some of the other budget airlines.

Southwest cancelled our flight out of Chicago last minute in late June and then refused to compensate us for anything when they had no flights to our destination. There's really no guarantee with any of the airlines these days. Make sure you are aware of other possible flights that might work so that you can book those the minute there might be an issue.

 

[dreynolds1982]

Like others have said, there's a bit more of that going around right now due to staffing shortages. I just flew SW last weekend. The flight time changed once in the six months that I had it booked (and it was way far in advance) but the outgoing flight was delayed 3 hrs out of the blue right when we were supposed to start boarding. No explanation, though I have a feeling it was because of lack of an available flight crew (that seems to be happening a lot). The flight back I had zero issues. My fiancee flew last weekend as well and had no issues in or outgoing (believe she was flying American).

Flying is always stressful, but right now especially so. That being said, it's not like this is happening to every flight or anything. Just keep your fingers crossed, hope for the best, and be prepared to be flexible if need be.

 

[tlovesdis]

Seems to be the normal lately. I had a flight on United in November to Orlando and about 2 months before it was all changed. Had a flight in April to Orlando and again about 2 months before changed. I have a SW flight in October (Oak-LB) and both coming and going just got changed over the last few days.

 

[mel2014]

We had four flights for September and October changed (SMF-LAX, LGB-SMF, SMF-BUR, and BUR-SMF). The Burbank flights were just 30 minute adjustments earlier, but the other two were several hour changes -- to a 2-hour later flight on a Friday and a 2-hour earlier flight on a Sunday, which would have significantly shorted our quick weekend trip. When the first one was changed, the usual option to switch to another LA-area airport wasn't offered online, so I switched to an earlier LAX flight that will require my husband and me to take several more hours off work and pull our kids out of school early.

When the LGB-SMF flight was changed I took the time to actually call SW and switch to a later flight out of SNA at no cost (as noted above, it now looks like the option to switch to other LA area airports is available online again). The agent I spoke with was quite the SW cheerleader (apologist?). She told me that these changes were actually a good sign, because it meant that Southwest was restoring flights to other destinations that had been pulled off the fall schedule, that they were gearing up to offer even more flights than before, that travel demand is higher than expected and forcing Southwest to make adjustments, that pilots were in retraining, etc., etc. but I agree that it seems more like they are trying to further consolidate the non-stop short-haul flights that might not have enough demand to fill the whole plane. For what it's worth, she did say that she expected this to be the last major adjustment to the fall schedule.

To add to the SW gripes above, we have always had great experience with Southwest, but this summer they really let us down. We dealt with several flight changes and adjustments to flight schedules in advance of a June vacation and didn't complain. But on our return flight home, just days after their computer-system boondoggle that required them to cancel and reschedule so many flights, we dropped off our rental car, arrived at the airport 1.5 hours in advance of our flight after checking in online and getting "A" Boarding group, went to the self-service kiosk to get bag tags, and received an error message that baggage check-in wasn't available until 4 hours before the flight.

Pulled up my confirmation again and they had, WITHOUT COMMUNICATING WITH US AT ALL, cancelled our reservation due to "weather in Phoenix" and rebooked us the following morning. My kids were travelling under a separate confirmation number (we were using reward points, they were using travel funds) and they had been rescheduled on an even later flight the following morning. I have the Southwest app and they had all of my contact information and we got no emails or notifications at all. The check-in agent was able to reshuffle to get us all on the same later flight, but we were stuck with high "C" boarding passes, a 2-stop itinerary taking several hours longer than our original one, and a last-minute overnight hotel bill. I have to confess that I took advantage of "family boarding" with my 10-year old (who clearly isn't under 6 but the gate agents didn't question) and violated the rules against "seat saving" by plunking a bag on our middle seat for my 12-year old so that my kids wouldn't end up sitting in middle seats next to strangers.

 

[LizzyS]

This is unfortunately "normal" for the time being. We had flights back to the east coast a few weeks ago and the outgoing flight's departure time was changed twice (the first time forced me to book a new flight because it changed our layover to 31 minutes!!) before we took off. We were flying Delta and everything was fine after the switching, but it was a bit nerve wracking because we were trying to make it to a memorial service.

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

Husband was flying DFW to Kansas city (I don't know the airport), and a co-worker was flying from Oklahoma City to meet up in DFW for the flight to KC. Well - Hub's original flight was delayed, delayed again, delayed again, and then cancelled, all within a couple of hours. There was no rebooking done for them. He was able to get on a 7pm flight out, which so far still looks good, but his co-worker was already in the air when the DFW-KC flight was canceled! So they spent today hanging out at our house inundated with kids. Fingers crossed they make it to KC tonight. This was either Delta or United (I forget which they used this time), and no explanation given for the delays or cancellations. Flying is clearly a bit of an adventure these days!