Connecting flights

[Mrk]

My girlfriend and I were traveling from Seattle to Oakland Sunday night, then my girlfriend was catching a connecting SW flight to Reno.  There was 45 minutes between the connection. The into Seattle was late and we left about 45 minutes late. Upon arrival in Oakland, the flight crew said for those who had connecting flights to see the gate agents. I was surprised that they didn’t ask the local passengers to let the people with connections debark first?  While she waited in the line, I ran down to another gate, which had a SW flight going to Vegas, then connecting to Reno.  The agents there took a while to figure out what I was requesting and said the flight from Vegas to Reno was full and that the couldn’t overbook.  We went back to the original counter, where they offered the room voucher & flight out Monday morning.  We opted for the $300 voucher and my girlfriend borrowed my car and drove the 4 hours to Reno, so she could be at work Monday morning.

On other airlines, I have seen them anticipate the close connections and hold the outbound flight. Since we landed in Oakland at 1915 and my girlfriend’s flight to Reno was scheduled to leave at 1915, why didn’t SW hold the flight for 5 minutes?  When I asked the gate agent this same question, she said the Reno flight “had to push”.  I usually am very lenient when it comes to the SW arrival/departure times, but was not happy with the lack of effort the SW team showed last night.  MRK

[dfwskier]

Hello.

Sorry to hear about your travel issues.

I've been on lots of Southwest flights that delayed long enough to allow late connecting passengers to make the flight. I have no idea why that would not have been the case for you.

As far as asking local passengers on your flight to Oakland to stay seated so that connecting passengers could get off the plane and make their connetions, my experience in those situations is that most local passengers ignore the request. So, I'm not sure that would have done you much good.

Hope yur future travels are less eventful.

[basslaw2010]

I understand your frustration with the connecting flight not being held.  Sometimes Southwest is able to do that and sometimes not because all those people on your connecting flight may have had connections to make later on and if they delayed the flight, those people would miss their connections.

I am glad to hear that you were offered the voucher; that could turn out to be a free flight somewhere.    Either way, this was definitely a frustrating experience and I'm sure your next one will be better.  Happy travels!