Southwest Owes Passengers Refunds
Excerpts from Slate
Samantha Luna and four family members were supposed to spend Christmas in Las Vegas. Instead they spent $2,500 to sleep in Kansas City, their layover destination, and purchase tickets on another airline back to New York. When Luna tried to get a hotel voucher for her family, an agent told her, “Southwest can’t control the weather,” she said.
“Weather keeps airlines from taking responsibility,” observed April Proveaux, whose family spent Christmas eating microwavable meals at an airport hotel in Denver.
Paul Hudson, the president of Flyersrights.org, a consumer advocacy group, agrees with Proveaux. Airlines often blame weather when it’s actually human error interacting with nature, he said.
Airlines do not simply engage in weather gaslighting in person; they do it with technology.
On Monday, Southwest’s chief operating officer, Andrew Watterson, acknowledged that the company’s scheduling software was the primary culprit, according to CNN. Simultaneously, the app continued to nudge some customers away from a refund.
Take the example of Luke Perrin, a student at Duke’s divinity and public policy schools. His flight to Portland was canceled on Tuesday morning. For some passengers, the app contained two options for reimbursement: “refund to credit card” or “hold for future use.”
On Tuesday, Secretary Buttigieg told the CEO of Southwest Airlines that the company needed to provide “meal vouchers, refunds, and hotel accommodations for those experiencing significant delays or cancellations that came about as a result of Southwest’s decisions and actions,” a representative for the Department of Transportation said in a statement provided to media. “The Department will take action to hold Southwest accountable if it fails to fulfill its obligations” the statement said.
