I hate Southwest. I really do. But, for some trips, their routes are the easiest; especially if I get to fly out of Burbank.
After booking a quick trip to Portland that will be later this week, I was summoned to Sacramento. Rather than paying change fees on Alaska, I booked a separate itinerary on Southwest to SMF and back. This proved to work better on paper than in real life.
The outbound to SMF was yesterday at 16:10. As I exited the 405 onto Howard Hughes, the flight inexplicably cancelled. I immediately changed my itinerary on my iPhone. because they’d cancelled two flights to SMF, the next available was 19:45. That’s a lot of time to kill when you’re already at the airport. Oh and looking at spending said extra time in Terminal 1 that has ONE bathroom beyond security with like 6 stalls. So, I had a lovely late lunch (which ended up being dinner, too) and a couple of margaritas. Then, I did a little shopping. Finally, I dragged myself over to Terminal 1 and settled in for the long haul.
It was awful. So crowded and smelly and there were birds in the terminal. I am so glad I didn’t get pooped on.
because of the cancellation, I lost my A position, which I paid $15 for in the form of early bird check-in. I did manage to get a $30 upgrade to business select, but I was out of pocket another $30 on a $185.96 fare + another $30 for the early bird worm thing. I paid the money and we did take off at 19:45.
I finally made it to SMF. I was in my hotel room (sidebar, National was a shitshow, too), by 2200. More than 4 hours later than I should have been. Oh, and yhen, I got to get up at 0615 to sit in a three hour meeting before catching a plane back to LAX.
Here’s where it gets bad. The flight, scheduled for 1710, was “on-time” until one hour before the flight left. then all hell broke loose.
the delay went from less than an hour, to more than an hour, and so on until it was now scheduled to leave at 1945!
no reason was given. early in the delay process, I went up to the gate agent and asked a million questions. why now? what happened? the same bullshit happened yesterday. isnt Southwest known for its customer service? this is unconscionable.
she answered all of my questions, towing the company line the entire time. still no real reason. but we were leaving at 1815. i requested the flight number of the inbound aircraft so I could track it.
mind you, the departure time kept moving without an announcement from the gate agent. then, the flight dropped off the screens all together.
pissed, I went up to the gate agent and asked if the flight cancelled. she said no; just sometimes they take the flight info down. oh, really, I asked. since when? no reply.
at this juncture I had already fired off an email to Southwest telling them that in exchange for my wasted time, i expected a 50% refund for my ticket
i went back to my seat. then a different gate agent got on the PA, and tried to be funny while she told us that we weren’t leaving until 19:45! WTF!?!?
here’s the story we were told. our plane took off late from Burbank. once in-flight they noticed that the air wasn’t working and had to have the plane looked at in SMF. had to be the same shitty, hot plane I was on yesterday? I digress. the gate agent went on to tell us that they weren’t going to let us use that plane and now we would be taking the in-bound plane from DIA back to LAX. really???? anyway, I went up to the gate agent and started firing questions. why didn’t they make an aircraft change when they first found out? was it because there were only 94 of us booked on the flight and who cares about us? (they told us there were only 94 peeps earlier when they were telling us how much time we’d save boarding!). there was no response, so I left and went back to my seat.
I had no choice but to rile up the fellow passengers. this was such bullshit. so, I started talking to the people around me about the bad customer service. most of the passengers had a story and said they always thought SWA was better than that. then I went in for the kill.
I went back to the gate agent and asked about the other delayed flight to LAX. were they going to actually fly two planes to LAX at the same time? or were they going to merge the flights? she looked at me strangely as what I asked set in. they had more than enough time to merge the flights. so, I told her to book me on the other flight. a business select ticket that is refundable. she looked at me like I was nuts. honestly, I didn’t think they’d let me hold two tickets for the same day with the same origin and destination. but she did it.
I went back to my seat and was instantly asked what I did. I started telling a couple of people and then came the announcement. southwest was SUPER sorry for the delay and all of us would be issued travel vouchers for our trouble. I’d like up think that my rebel rousing caused the gate agent to call her supervisor for the approval to issue the vouchers. the value of the voucher? $100. good for a year.
other passengers started telling me “good job” for making something happen. then there were informal bets that when my voucher was issued, it’d be $0.10 because I was such a troublemaker. I really wish it had been just 10 cents, better for the story, but I got $100 just like everyone else.
and now I’m on my original flight. other ticket refunded. I’m the Norma Rae of gate B15.
where the tiara hits the road 