To say the holiday travel season was a little chaotic is a great understatement. Even after bad weather grounded flights all over the U.S., Southwest Airlines continued to cancel thousands of flights FOR DAYS even after the weather had cleared, leaving passengers stranded.
As the problem dragged on, Southwest Airlines’ CEO released a public apology video. Eventually, Southwest’s flight schedule returned to normal, and the airline began issuing refunds to affected passengers. However, for some, that isn’t enough, and a lawsuit has been filed against the company.
According to Insider, a group of Southwest shareholders has filed a lawsuit against the company with allegations that the airline hid certain problems that resulted in mass flight cancellations over the holiday travel season.
The class action lawsuit was filed against Southwest Airlines, its CEO, CFO, and executive chairman earlier this week in a federal court in Houston, accusing the airline of not noting failures in its scheduling system that resulted in the flight cancelations. According to the lawsuit, shareholders allege they “have suffered significant losses and damages” because of how the company’s market value dropped after the mass cancellations.
According to Mike Santoro, the vice president of Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association, the weather cancellations were made worse because of the airline’s “outdated” scheduling system.
Since the cancellations, Southwest announced a huge sale with airfares as low as $49 per day. This included flights to Orlando, for those headed to Disney World.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on the situation and keep you updated.
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Were you affected by the Southwest flight cancellations over the holidays? Let us know in the comments.
Carol Maxwell says
yes, my flight was canceled the day i was supposed to leave ..couldn’t reschedule till 4 days later ….then decided to not take a chance and booked on another airline
Leah B. says
Our flight was canceled for 12/28 to go home after a vacation. No other flights available. Rented a car, lucky to find one and drove 25 hours to get home. Bad roads and horrible weather, missed an extra 2 days of work and considerable expense. I’ve submitted for reimbursement but just keep hearing they are working on it and to be patient. I’m so frustrated at this point!
Susan Johnson says
Yes it had impacted me severely, my mother had passed away and I had put all my money into the airline ticket to get to my mom’s services the morning my flight was scheduled to depart I got a text saying my flight had been canceled the minute I received the text I immediately started calling southwest to see if I could get on another flight I needed to be in Tulsa by 9am on December 29th and I was having such a hard time getting thru and once I got thru my call was disconnected and then I couldn’t get thru for hours then I got disconnected!! Once I was able to talk to agent she said they would refund me my ticket and reimburse all expenses I had to pay to get to my destination well that’s all fine and dandy if they would have refunded my money immediately not days weeks or month later!! I had no money to pay for another airline or rental car and means of transportation to get to tulsa not to mention its a 27 hour drive 3 days on a greyhound I would have never made it there on time. The funeral home would have charged us 50 bucks per day to keep my mom on ice but there was no way any of us could have afford that after all the expenses of paying for her funeral cost!! I’m the oldest and my mothers death was unexpected and sudden!! So needless to say I’m dealing with alot of emotional and mental issues of not being able to attend my mothers services!! Thats something you have to live with for the rest of your lives knowing you couldn’t be there and there wasn’t anything I could do and Southwest is to blame for all of my emotional and mental issues….