Members of the Senate Commerce Committee are promising to investigate Southwest Airlines as flight cancellations top 10,000 over the holiday week.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chair of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee promised her committee would be probing the causes of the flight delays and cancelations.
‘The problems at Southwest Airlines over the last several days go beyond weather. The Committee will be looking into the causes of these disruptions and its impact to consumers,’ she said in a statement. ‘Many airlines fail to adequately communicate with consumers during flight cancellations. Consumers deserve strong protections, including an updated consumer refund rule.’
In November Cantwell, together with Sens. Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal, filed a comment with the Department of Transportation (DOT) urging a new rule that would ensure consumers are fairly compensated when flights are canceled or severely delayed due to an airline issue – including for secondary food and lodging costs.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chair of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee promised her committee would be probing the causes of the flight delays and cancelations
Markey and Blumenthal put out their own statement blaming the chaos on ‘internal failures’ at Southwest.
‘Southwest Airlines is failing its customers during the most important travel week of the year,’ the pair said. ‘Instead of a holiday spent celebrating with family and friends, passengers are sleeping in airports or desperately trying to reach customer service agents.’
‘For those travelers whose holidays have been ruined, there’s no real way to make this right. But the company can start by fairly compensating passengers whose flights were canceled,’ they went on.
‘Southwest is planning to issue a $428 million dividend next year – the company can afford to do right by the customers.
‘Southwest cannot avoid compensating passengers by claiming these flight cancellations were caused by recent winter storms.
Stranded passengers say they are not being compensated for canceled flights, only offered credit
Travelers wait for their bags at Delta baggage claim Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022, at Salt Lake City International Airport, in Salt Lake City
Airport staff and a person walks around a pile of lost suitcases near the baggage carousel at Midway Airport in Chicago, on Tuesday
Airport staff looks around a pile of lost suitcases near the baggage carousel at Midway Airport in Chicago
‘As Southwest executives have acknowledged, the mass cancellations yesterday were largely due to the failure of its own internal systems. As such, those cancellations should be categorized as ‘controllable,’ and Southwest should compensate passengers accordingly.’
Desperate passengers were forced to sleep in terminals surrounded by growing mounds of lost luggage after being stranded at airports when the airline canceled over 80 percent of its flight schedule – causing President Biden to weigh in.
‘Thousands of flights nationwide have been canceled around the holidays. Our Administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable,’ Biden wrote on Twitter.
The Department of Transportation, meanwhile, said it would ‘examine whether cancellations were controllable’ and if Southwest is reimbursing or accommodating customers according to its customer service plan. Sec. Pete Buttigieg said he would have ‘more to say’ later Tuesday.
Southwest barred passengers from rebooking blundered flights after announcing they are only operating 1,500 trips a day until Friday, leaving many separated from loved ones during the festive season.
The airline has already canceled more than 2,500 flights on Tuesday leaving tens of thousands of people in the lurch as the new year approaches.
The Texas-based airline is currently not letting passengers book or rebook flights – forcing travelers to buy massively overpriced, last-minute tickets on other airlines.
Southwest has set up a portal for customers to request a refund after irate customers took to Twitter to complain about the hours long lines at the airport and be disconnected via phone.
But some still say that they’re only offered credit, rather than money back.
Of the nearly 3,000 flights canceled today, Southwest made up 2,566 of them, canceling 60 percent more flights than the next leading major airlines, United and JetBlue, which only canceled two percent of its flights today. American Airlines has canceled zero percent today.
Plenty of families wait around hoping for a miracle while other try to get on other airlines
The backlog of baggage is also atrocious as hundreds of bags wait to be picked up
Many passengers are forced to stay at the airports as many hotels are booked full and rental cars are unavailable
One passenger said they had to rebook on a first-class ticket on a separate airline to make it home and their luggage is still tied up with Southwest, including their medications.
Grey DeLisle wrote on Twitter: ‘Stop blaming the WEATHER! Had to buy a first-class ticket on another airline, but it TOOK OFF ON TIME!
‘You have our luggage with medication inside! Can’t get through the phone! Holding for hours since Christmas Eve only to be disconnected. Dad missed Xmas!’
Photos revealed the chaotic, overcrowded baggage claim carousals which passengers are having to deal with because of the cancelations.
Hundreds of bags are lying unaccounted for at La Guardia Airport and Midway Airport in Chicago – and Southwest has allegedly failed to designate someone to help customers sort through the mounds of luggage.
Desperate passengers were forced to sleep in terminals surrounded by growing mounds of luggage after being stranded at airports when the airline canceled over 70 percent of its flight schedule – causing President Biden to weigh in
Baggage at LaGuardia airport was neatly lined up as plenty of bags wait for customers to pick them up on Tuesday after the swathe of cancelations
Union representatives claimed that flight attendants and other crew members are stuck in different states across the US after a series of cancellations.
The airline doesn’t have their precise locations since stranded workers took matters into their own hands and booked their own accommodations when the company failed to help in a timely manner.
‘We have crews stuck, and scheduling doesn’t know where they are,’ Casey Murray, a union representative for the airlines said.
The CEO Bob Jordan confirmed that the company’s scheduling platforms are not advanced enough for the current crisis.
Jordan told employees earlier this week that it could take days for the airline to resume normal operations.
‘The winter storm was unprecedented all across our network,’ Jordan said in a statement obtained by the Wall Street Journal. ‘And we’ve got fallout from that — just trying to get the network back to normal.’
In a statement, the airline cited ‘consecutive days of extreme winter weather’ as the culprit.
‘Challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable,’ the statement read.