cupps

I just experienced the worst flight ever in 20 years of flying and it was on an SWA flight.

Flew out of KC on 8/04/08 and was originally scheduled on Flight 2165 from KC to MDW. Due to weather flight was delayed and did not board until 9pm.
From there it got nuts and I am leaving out a lot of details at the moment, but once my family & I boarded- 2 kids under 8 yrs of age, we did not arrive in to MDW until 4:45am on 8/05/08. In that entire time, we were off the plane for exactly 20 minutes, in Louisville, KY!!!

My question is how can I find out what time other flights on SWA arrived that evening because Flight 2100 which was originally before mine and Flight 46, after mine were also delayed, but I believe they both ended up getting in to Chicago before us due to our plane also having a mechanical issue on the ground in KC besides the weather issues.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.

grain

that day was crazy in chicago. if you seen the radar over chicago you would be happy not to be flying into it. we had a mdw-slc-boi flight, come here at like 12:16 am and leave at 12:40am. nothing you can do when the government controls everything about flying.

Beckles

Flight 46 departed at 1:58 AM and arrived at 2:58 AM

Flight 2100 departed at 9:34 PM and arrived at 10:32 PM

While I certainly wouldn't be happy with weather + mechanical + diversion, if an 8 hour delay is the worst air travel experience of your life in 20 years of air travel, you're pretty darn lucky.

aspex

Agreed, the weather was awful that day.

I was on AA ORD -> ALB when we got delayed, then O'Hare was evacuated for the tornado, then there was only 1 TSA checkpoint to reprocess everyone, then we had a mechanical failure, then ANOTHER storm rolled in to delay us another hour. Long and short of it was I didn't get to my hotel in ALB until 4am. We were supposed to land at 9:45pm...

I do agree, it was the worst travel day.

JohnDunn

I am sure glad I flew out of MDW on 8/3

CABNcrew

Cupps:

I'm sorry you had a bad experience traveling with us but I hope it was more due to the delays and not to the service you received. Unfortunately weather/mechanical delays affect ALL airlines and it becomes an overall bad situation for pax as well. I know your experience was not unique, unfortunately there were MANY MANY tired, weary travelers that day as well as into the next day but hopefully you've had time to recover.
Beyond the weather/mechanical if there's anything else that you weren't pleased with I do sincerely hope all of your future travels with us are much better!

CABNCrew!

SWABrian

Cupps,
I join with CABNCrew in apologizing for your experience, but unfortunately you weren't alone. Normally, I wouldn't share this internal document but this was the recap of the situation in MDW.

MDW - as one might imagine, there were flight delays, Customer misconnections, and flight cancellations due to Crew duty time restrictions.

Flight #2251, PHL MDW - double divert due to MDW WX - first to SDF, then to STL. The flight arrived almost eight hours late.

Flight #1949, BUF MDW - double divert due to MDW WX - first to CLE, then to STL. The flight arrived a little over six hours late.

Four flights (F296, STL MDW; F2165, MCI MDW; F3758, PHL MDW; and F1052, LAX MDW) diverted due to MDW WX, then xcld due to Crew duty time restrictions.

In addition, we had at least eight more flights that experienced lengthy delays.

If that wasn't enough, the MDW FAA Tower had to be abandoned for a period due to the high winds. Several of our aircraft on the ground at MDW were damaged by blowing bag carts.

From what I understand, this storm essentially appeared out of nowhere catching everyone off guard. It wasn't forecast and especially wasn't expected to be this strong.

I am sorry you were caught up in this mess.

Appletom

The OP's 1:20 nonstop turned into an eight hour one stop. Add the two kids and I can certainly see where this feels like the "Worst flight ever".

I remember many years ago I left El Paso on the first flight of the day and was supposed to have lunch in New Orleans with one plane change in San Antonio. Weather played some cruel tricks and I ended up getting to MSY well after midnight - and an unremembered airport in Florida was part of my travels that day!

DontCallMeShirley

Many many flights were delayed that day. Chicago weather was downright insane. There were flights that came in after yours as well. I guess they could have canceled your flight and left you stranded in MCI for the night.

FSU

We were on Flt 2188 that night from LAX to MDW due in at 8:55. They closed MDW while we were en route, so we diverted to Kansas City. We arrived there at about 8:40, got gas and left at about 9:15. The pilot stated that we should have priority over other flights as we were considered a diversion. We landed at MDW at about 10:30. On the drive home from the airport, the weather was so bad, we had to pull off the road. So I can see why other flights were delayed. Guess we were lucky we were only delayed a relatively short time. Sorry to hear about your flight.

darthbimmer

Monday was an awful day for flying in Chicago. Storms, heavy winds, tornado warnings, etc. If I were you I would not spend any time investigating whether your flight was delayed more than it should have been or place blame for that. It was a hard day for all travelers. Instead I would assess the quality of the customer service SWA delivered. Were the reps working hard & late into the night to support you? Were they polite despite being under enormous stress ? Did they maintain regular communication to help you understand the situation as it was unfolding? If your answer to all 3 is positive then I humbly suggest you've experienced great customer service. Terrible weather, yes, but great customer service.

TheRoadie

Better to be on the ground WISHING you were in the air than in the air PRAYING you were on the ground.

707Flyer

friend of mine flew into ORD on UA Monday, and was lucky to only be a few hrs late, but said the ride was the bumpiest she'd ever experienced

fotoflyer88

Forgive me if I sound like a n00b. But why divert planes bound for MDW to an airport besides STL? Are the weather patterns that similar?

Worst case, one could offload passengers to Greyhound busses and get them to MDW in less than eight hours I've done the drive myself.

SWABrian

Well that's a good question. There are several answers to explain diversions in a general sense. A major disruption at MDW, LAS, BWI, PHX, etc has a bigger impact than OMA or IND shutting down. Usually it is a question of the diversion point being able to handle additional aircraft. Keep in mind that other airports have their own flight operations going on--STL is a good sized operation. They (and other diversion airports) have a limit of gates and personnel to work extra flights. It wouldn't be good to divert everything to STL and have flights wait hours for gates. Smaller stations like IND have even less capability to handle large numbers of extra flights, so we try to spread the diversions out. If the diversion is a quick fuel and go because of a fast moving storm, one airport may be able to handle more flights. If the weather is stationary, like in MDW on the 4th, or a major snowstorm, diverted flights can back up , so again gate space and manpower are issues. Other factors are if the flight can divert to a scheduled downline city. Lets say we have a DTW-MDW-MCI-LAS flight. It might be better to divert to MCI because there are already DTW-MCI Customers on board, the flight can continue to LAS, and the DTW-MDW passengers can be put on another flight back to MDW. You also have to watch out to ensure the weather at the diversion point won't deteriorate also. There is also Crew duty times to consider, and a lot more in making these decisions. Do we always make the right decision in choosing a diversion point? No we don't because there are no guarantees in weather forecasting, but we do a pretty good job on balance.