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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To those affected by SW and their incompetence, you have my sympathies.  Weather happens, mixups happen, stuff happens, but Southwest and their efforts in the last week are not acceptable.

I live equal distance from BWI and Dulles- near Frederick, while I favor IAD and United, I have flown Southwest plenty and never had any serious issues.  Like many, I don’t like their checkin and boarding process, but if the fare is a lot cheaper I’m ok with SW.  This latest debacle with SW will probably change my mind when considering them.  Also, for all their talk about “low fares,” it’s just talk.  Their pricing is pretty similar to all the other carriers.[/quote]

Maybe I’m flying different routes, but I live near IAD and almost always take SW out of DCA because United is usually $50-$100 per ticket more, and we have 4 tickets to buy.[/quote]

^^^plus United like to change their flight schedule a bunch of times until the nonstop flight you bought no longer exists and your other options are limited. I agree SW screwed the pooch here but don’t act like United is a paragon of virtue.[/quote]

Everyone’s experience is different but I have never had an issue with United. We’ve changed our tickets with ease, got credits when we canceled that were easy to use to rebook, no delays or cancellations . I almost always book United. Last week when the storm was forecast they offered free flight changes if you were worried your day/time would be impacted and could move it, which we did. I know this isn’t the case for everyone but truly United is our choice airline for these reasons. [/quote]

There was definitely a period of time where every flight I booked on United got changed/altered so many times before I actually flew that the schedule was unrecognizable. I’d go from a 9am nonstop to an 8pm with a connection. And this happened over and over again to where we just gave up flying them. [/quote]

We have also had that experience multiple times with United, as recently as Christmas 2021, when we ended up buying last minute replacement tickets through SWA.  United was going to take 5 flights to get us home, versus the 2 we had originally booked.  I’d be happy to hear that United is improving.  I do truly think that the SWA problem was almost entirely the software collapse.  I saw it happening in real time as we were sitting at the airport all day—the gate agents were very honest about what was going on. They had planes and crews but couldn’t fly because no one at HQ would pick up the phone to just enter the crew change into the system.  The fact that it needed to be done manually was a disaster.  A fully crewed plane sat for 6 hours because the telephone line was busy — and I’m sure that happened all over.  They couldn’t use the resources they had because of a small hitch in the system.  I kept thinking “for want of a nail….the war was lost.”  [/quote]

This is our experience right now with United is IMO, it's not improving. We booked for spring break and have gotten about three flight changes thus far, each necessitating a call to make sure we still have the seats we purchased. Managing our flights should be a one and done, not an ongoing job.[/quote]

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