Losing Faith in Customer Service at Southwest Airlines

When Customer Service Becomes a Distant Memory

Once upon a time, Southwest Airlines had a dedicated customer service team that was proactive. If your flight was significantly delayed, they would send you Luv vouchers along with an apology letter. Now, I can’t help but wonder if those employees were laid off, as I haven’t heard from anyone since my flight was canceled last week, resulting in a four-hour delay.

Honestly, I could have driven to my destination faster. I admit there’s a bit of sentimentality here. But this was the first time I truly felt the impact of Southwest’s drastic cut in flight schedules within California, making them incredibly sparse. Whether this reduction is the cause or consequence of rising ticket prices is not my main concern.

The key issue now is that when a flight gets canceled, there are no flights available from half an hour to an hour later like there used to be 20 years ago. It’s not just two or three hours; it’s four hours or more! United Airlines at SFO now offers more flights to LAX than Southwest does from both OAK and SFO combined. And if a United flight is delayed, they still have another flight shortly after.

Even Alaska Airlines and their partner American Airlines operate 16 flights daily from SFO to LAX. Meanwhile, Southwest has significant gaps between flights at each airport. It feels like they’re trying to push passengers to other airlines.

I acknowledge that over the years, Southwest hasn’t profited much from my $39 flights, so it makes sense that they might neglect customers like me. However, their ticket prices are now on par with or even higher than their competitors, so they could definitely make money from that.

After over 25 years of flying with Southwest, I had never experienced a four-hour delay until last week. I’m not happy about it. I might start shifting my important flights to Alaska or United in 2027. I’ve already begun transferring my less critical flights to Frontier.

It would be great if I could receive equivalent recognition from a legacy airline, but I doubt my short flights within California will help me meet any requirements. I’ll need a major flight to rack up miles.

So, I anticipate having no status in 2027, except perhaps with Frontier, along with credit card status with some other airlines. My flying time with Southwest has been wonderful, but that chapter seems to be closing. Over 2000 flights. It appears that Southwest has completed its transformation into a legacy airline, at least in the California region.

P.S. I know how to file a compensation claim with Southwest for this delay. I just hope they make it unnecessary, as they did in the past.