We have a trip planned for early February on southwest. We could change, at least part of it to another airlines. Would you? There will be snowstorms before now & then to muck it up. We are in Denver so are seeing this debacle on the news hourly. Do you think they can recover by then?I suppose this should be in another forum but it will have a much bigger audience here.

You're right, but here it is -- anyway, I'm also in Denver now and divide time between here and Bay Area. I gave up on Southwest and now fly United between SFO and DEN.

That said, I'd be surprised if it weren't sorted by late Feb. In your shoes I'd switch to a legacy carrier if there's little or no penalty.

Annw, I agree with your points and I'm not sure I would fly SW right now or even in February.

You said one thing I don't understand. SW has been flying for 50 years. Are they not a legacy carrier?

I would switch airlines if for no other reason than Southwest deserves to lose business over this mismanagement. It's the only recourse us customers have.

Even though a lot of other flights were cancelled due to weather, I heard on the news this AM that 87% of all cancelled flights were with Southwest.
I would go with one of the carriers that was able to work around the weather issues.

They will have to reboot and probably recover in a week or so. If I had ticket for a nonstop flight on SW to a city that was not served by nonstop flights on another carrier then I would want to keep it. An example would be LGB-LAS.

[SW says back to normal on Friday]

United has a lot of nonstop destinations from its Denver hub and it has the resources there to fix things when stuff happens.

It would make sense to cancel a Feb flight on SW and use the ticket during non-blizzard season.

This is the right place for this thread given that the topic is air travel and this is the Air Travel forum, or maybe this was moved here,.

Yes they do allow two free bags and ability to cancel with credit to your account, but if you have no flexibility then I might not go with them.

Or book a backup with another airline that you can cancel without penalty if you don't need it. (Some mileage flights might still allow free cancellation or changes, not sure).

I have a similar dilemma coming up at the end of April but hopefully they will have it sorted then.

I heard a rumor that Elon Musk also bought Southwest Airlines. Is it true? (Yes, it is a joke)

Seriously, they said that tomorrow they will start regular flights. Give it 2-3 days and then decide if you want to change.

Flying anymore is just not fun. I have had in the past year problems on both American and United where they did not care about the passengers. Canceling flights at the last minute, no agents to direct anyone, long lines for no help as everyone working was there all day and needed to go home. They didn’t care and only offered refunds. What good does that do if you weren’t at your home airport and couldn’t get your luggage back as it was being held hostage. No vouchers for anything and hotels aren’t cheap at the last minute with most being full.

My advice would be to keep what you have but be prepared for the worst. Make up your mind before you get to the airport on what you would do should the flight get canceled. Having a plan already mapped out will help tremendously. It’s better to know and not have to use it. To me this seems to now be the norm during any holiday so you may be ok.

North American flight rights and reimbursement law needs to catch up. Eight years ago in Greece, we were given 500 Euros cash on the spot, plus meal vouchers, simply for agreeing to be bumped on a domestic flight. The free makeup flight was a mere 2 1/2 hours later. No probs.
Btw, CNN reported that SW was given over $7 billion by the government, funds intended to prevent layoffs, not necessarily to upgrade logistical system shortcomings.
Fingers crossed for those travelers still waiting for any clarification.

I am done. The end.

Southwest used to be the most dependable airline, on time, pleasant staff. We flew Southwest frequently.
Since the CEO and founder retired, things haven’t been the same. We won’t fly them anymore one reason being all three seats across so can’t get away from other passengers who aren’t family. And this fiasco the past few days will is just confirmation that we should avoid Southwest.

PM That's a good point; I was thinking of the United/Delta/AA carriers.

Southwest is a "low cost carrier" even as it is one of the major airlines.

wikipedia sez:

Active legacy carriers

The list has shrunk over the years. In 2005 there were four legacy airlines which were under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[7] More mergers took place in the decade 2010-2019 and more low cost carriers emerged.[8][9] As of 2020, the list of legacy carriers remaining after 10 years of mergers is as follows:

• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• Delta Air Lines
• Hawaiian Airlines
• United Airlines

**Even though a lot of other flights were cancelled due to weather, I heard on the news this AM that 87% of all cancelled flights were with Southwest.
I would go with one of the carriers that was able to work around the weather issues.**

While weather started the cancellations, that is not what caused the Southwest meltdown. It's their ancient IT systems that they haven't wanted to spend money on to upgrade for 30 years. Instead they gave the money to their execs. That's why the couldn't recover like the legacy airlines did. Southwest could not tell where their crews were because of poor IT. They literally lost track of their employees (pilots/FAs/ground crews) and that created the mess. Southwest is that bad. I have to fly them a couple of times a year for a certain non stop route and I just hate them. Dreading my next flight with them which will most likely be in Feb.