Cyio

Seems a tad hyperbolic. Remember this is the airline that has multiple airplanes run off the end of the runway and is still loved. I am not saying this isnt going to hurt, but I dont see them being for sale either.

hockeypilot44

Sh!t happens. If Southwest’s ticket price is reasonable and the flight is non-stop, passengers will book it. This will be forgotten in a few weeks by most people. Everyone knows it’s a once time occurrence.

People are ****ed now, but they’ll get over it. They always do.

drywhitetoast

Except it's not.

Cyio

This exactly. Every airline ****ed off customers and if every customer remembered these things none of them would remain in business. I have had horrible experiences on every major airline in this country both as a paying and non-rev passenger and at the end of the day, when I need to get somewhere, I look at cost and frequency and conveniently forget about the bad experience I had last time. I know its fun to doom and gloom this and it was certainly a doozy of a **** up on WN management but they will recover and hopefully learn their lesson by improving the areas that need improved.

FollowMe

With the cancel total now over 15,000 if one considers an average ticket price of $300 and a 75% load factor (both conservative assumptions) the refund only bill is north of half a Billion. Add in any expense reimbursement and it’s going to be over a Billion, easy.

poopooplatter

A few thoughts (they are worth what you have paid for them).

1: Warren Buffet once said “It’s not until the tide goes out, that you realize who was swimming naked.” Well, the tide went out…and SWA was naked as a jay bird.

2: If you look at a flight board, amidst all the cancellations…you will notice a few that will always remain ON TIME. Vacations. Montego Bay, Cancun, etc. Why? Because history has shown that messing up someone’s vacation/cruise connection is some of the worst, longest lasting press that you can get. People do not forget that. To that end, I surmise that costing someone their vacation deposit and ruining their time off would only be surpassed by one thing: ruining their Christmas with family. You don’t forget. As I am a lifer here, and past V1 to bolt, I am praying for the best. However, those who shrug it off, may be underestimating the damage done.

Poopoo out.

Cyio

The assumption here is that they will be refunded. I would argue that most would be converted to a deferred ticket or something and be used at a later time. Given that a lot of these cancelations can be attributed to weather I think that buys them a way out of shelling cash for it all. Certainly there will be a high cost to it, but I dont think it will all be refunded in the traditional sense.

AYLflyer

I'm not a SWA guy but I think you guys will be just fine. It's gonna hurt in the short term, but the general public isn't going to care about this in a few weeks/months time once it leaves the news cycle.

Most of the time my non-aviation friends fly somewhere, they don't even know what airline it's on, only that it was the cheapest ticket. SWA isn't going anywhere.

Varks

This could lead to additions to the passenger bill of rights. Passengers have had enough of airlines screwing them out of their travel plans. Yes weather is the cause of most disruptions but incompetence is there too. Every airline knows that the passengers come back when the price is right. If European type rules are established then maybe the airlines will begin to actually care about getting a person from point A to point B. Southwest is today’s punching bag. Who will be next? Could an airline preemptively come up with its own bill of rights to get out ahead of a government mandated plan? $50 for a one hour delay, $100 for 2. $500 for a cancellation that causes a day after arrival? Food hotels rental car reimbursement? Could happen.

FollowMe

Any assumption kick the can methods like vouchers are going to solve this are out of touch with reality, the minimum exposure at this point is a Billion and growing. You cannot systemically **** the bed like this over the most important travel period of the year (for Americans) and expect you’re just going to tell people “sorry, rebook your future travel with us and we’ll do better next time.”

I would make a comment that it’s a good thing company leaders are smarter than random line pilots…but recent decisions have me questioning such traditional wisdoms.