Travelers at Wichita’s Eisenhower airport unhappy with Southwest cancellations
Southwest Airlines canceled hundreds more flights Monday following a weekend of major service disruptions.
By late morning Monday, Southwest had canceled about 365 flights — 10% of its schedule for the day — and more than 600 others were delayed.
The Dallas-based airline blamed air traffic control issues and bad weather for weekend “operational challenges” that resulted in 1,900 canceled flights on Saturday and Sunday.
The flight cancellations left behind some angry passengers Monday morning at Wichita’s Eisenhower National Airport.
Fred Calhoun and Vanesha Williams had to buy another ticket on a different airline to get home to Florida after visiting their son Najhay Calhoun, a defensive lineman for the Butler Community College football team.
“We were supposed to leave yesterday (Sunday),” Williams said. “They rescheduled us to fly out on Tuesday. Now they say they won’t even give us a refund. They offered us a credit (toward future travel on Southwest). Like we’d ever fly with them again.”
Calhoun said the cancellation was stressful and expensive.
“What if people don’t have the money to buy a ticket on another airline?” he said. “That’s going to be hard on a lot of people.”
Alison Ault, a resident of Southern California, said she and her parents had to take a detour to get to the Wichita area for a weekend wedding.
“We were supposed to fly in here,” she said. “The closest they could get us was Oklahoma City. We rented a car and drove from there.”
She said that car rental added about $300 to the price of the trip.
On Monday, Southwest had the trio booked for a return flight, but Ault said she had made a backup reservation on another airline just in case.
“We’ll see how it all goes,” she said.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which provides air traffic control services, took the unusual step of pushing back against Southwest’s explanation.
Southwest Airlines was the only airline to report such a large percentage of canceled and delayed flights over the weekend.
This story was originally published October 11, 2021 at 1:15 PM.