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Southwest Airlines problems: Stranded travelers still struggling to cope

Post-Gazette

Southwest Airlines problems: Stranded travelers still struggling to cope

Joaquin Jimenez was struggling with the heartbreaking death of his sister when he arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport Wednesday in hopes of securing a flight back to Phoenix.

But it was to no avail. Southwest Airlines wouldn’t be able to accommodate him — perhaps not until New Year’s Eve at the earliest.

Now Mr. Jimenez fears that he could lose his job and his home because he can’t get back to Phoenix to work his job at IHOP to earn the money he needs to pay his rent.

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He was supposed to fly out Wednesday, only to find that Southwest had canceled the flight — one of 2,500 the airline ditched on that day alone as it wrestled to right itself after a systemwide meltdown left multitudes of travelers stranded across the country.

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“They have absolutely no solution, none at all,” he said of his plight.

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At first the carrier stated the earliest he could get a flight out of Pittsburgh was Jan. 2. An airline rep at the airport later told his sister, Roxanna, that he might be able to get one Dec. 31.

That was of no help to Mr. Jimenez, who was supposed to be back on his job Wednesday. He had already taken time off to deal with the tragic loss of another sister, whose funeral was Tuesday.

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Roxanna Jimenez said a Southwest rep blamed Wednesday’s cancellation on “displaced crew members.” The airline offered a $200 voucher for a future flight, Roxanna said.

“There’s nothing they can do. It doesn’t matter that he has his job on the line, his house on the line,” she said.

She added the family doesn't have the money to pay for a flight on another airline and then wait to get reimbursed by Southwest.

Mr. Jimenez, his sister, and mother drove an hour from New Castle to the airport to try to sort out the situation after they couldn’t get through to Southwest by phone.

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Roxanna, who also lives in the Phoenix area, is scheduled to fly back via Southwest on Dec. 31. So far, her flight is still on time. In trying to get her brother a flight back, a Southwest rep told her New Year’s Eve “looks like a good day.”

According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, Southwest has so far canceled only one flight from Pittsburgh on Dec. 30. It scuttled 38 Wednesday and expects to dump another 34 Thursday. Dec. 31 flights have yet to be listed.

Mr. Jimenez, who lives in Prescott near Phoenix, thought that if he came to the airport and waited on standby he might be able to get on a flight home. But Southwest stated there was nothing available Wednesday.

At this point, Joaquin and Roxanna aren’t sure Southwest will deliver on New Year’s Eve.

“I’m not 100% confident. I’m worried about it. I will never fly Southwest again,” Roxanna said.

Neither she nor Joaquin were happy with the way the airline has dealt with their plight.

“They’re lacking 100% accountability. They’re indifferent and don’t care,” Roxanna said. “They’re pretty much just trying to cover their own tracks.”

The situation with the Jimenez family shows that Southwest is still struggling to get crews back in place and planes back into the skies nearly a week after a blast of frigid weather and a snow storm all but paralyzed its system.

Since Dec. 22, the airline has canceled more than 12,000 flights. And that doesn’t include another 2,348 it expects to scrap Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has called the massive scale of the cancellations “unacceptable.” It has stated that it will examine whether they were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer care policy.

“Now we’ve never seen a situation, at least not on my watch, with this volume of disruptions so this is going to take an extraordinary level of effort by Southwest and we will mount an extraordinary effort to make sure that they're meeting their obligations,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America”.

Data released by the Department of Transportation showed Southwest cancellations starting to escalate Dec. 21 before peaking at 78% of its schedule Monday, when cancellations by all other airlines accounted for 6% of their schedules

On Tuesday, Southwest canceled 65% of its schedule, compared to 3% by other airlines, according to the data.

In an update Tuesday, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said that he was “truly sorry” for the problems, blaming the bitter cold. He added that flight crews and airplanes ended up being out of position in dozens of locations.

“The tools we use to recover from disruption serve us well, 99% of the time; but clearly, we need to double down on our already existing plans to upgrade systems for these extreme circumstances so that we never again face what's happening right now,” he said.

He also vowed to take care of customers and to “lean in and go above and beyond as they would expect us to.”

The Jimenez family wasn’t the only one in Pittsburgh affected by Southwest’s woes.

Days after the bitter cold was all but a memory, a Baldwin Borough family learned that four of their flights to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., scheduled for Thursday had been canceled.

Two family members, Craig and Marie (neither wanted to give their last name), arrived at the airport Wednesday afternoon looking for answers after trying without success to get through by phone.

“It’s the only way to communicate with the airline,” Craig said.

Southwest ended up booking the four family members whose flights were canceled on separate Saturday trips — but warned them they might want to think twice about checking luggage. The airline’s problems have left countless bags stranded at airports across the country.

“They said, ‘You might want to carry on, just in case,’” Marie said. “They’re trying to get everyone’s extra luggage on flights to send back to them now.”

Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.

First Published: December 29, 2022, 12:04 a.m.
Updated: December 29, 2022, 4:07 p.m.

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